


Readjustments

by foxhead



Series: Fullmetal Alchefics [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst, Blow Jobs, Edwin Smut, Eventual Smut, F/M, First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, Fluff and Smut, Hurt/Comfort, Porn With Plot, Puberty, Restraints, Sexual Fantasy, Sexual Tension, Surgery, Vomiting, edwin - Freeform, i disobeyed the canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-17
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-06-08 23:11:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6878626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxhead/pseuds/foxhead
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ed is growing too fast for his automail to keep up. </p><p>Hurt/comfort fic in which Ed is subjected to a readjustment procedure and the whims of his mechanic, who is all too pleased to have him to herself for a little while.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>Maybe the Fullmetal Alchemist didn’t have enough self control to keep himself away from her, but Winry Rockbell had enough self control to do it for the both of them.</i><br/><i>Damn him. And damn me for falling for him.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Changes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edward is suffering from growing pains, and his automail fits a little more snug than he would like.

Ed had been noticing it for a few weeks now. A dull ache, like something inside his phantom shoulder pressing against his bones, trying to push its way out. Not only that, but he would reach to pick something up, or he would lift his arms to put a shirt on, and his right shoulder would _pinch,_ hard. A similar sensation haunted his left leg, where it seemed like the cool metal rings holding his mechanical limb in place were radiating pain through his whole thigh. It was getting worse by the day. It had started small and manageable, able to be ignored, but throughout the weeks of work and research the pain had gotten to the point of keeping him awake at night. The irritation from sleep deprivation and chronic pain were starting to get to him. He would lie in his bed, gently massaging the scar tissue connecting his skin to the automail branching over his right breast and shoulder, like how his mother used to rub his head whenever he got headaches, whispering the same mantra over and over to drive away the ache. _Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Fluorine..._ He also tried medicine, small inflammation-relief pills sold in the clinics around Central. it helped, but it was a short term solution. He was getting impatient, snappy, even more irritable than usual. He avoided the Colonel knowing full well that even a smirk from Mustang could send him into a fit. He hated feeling so unstable.

On the outskirts of Central, far from the stimulation of the city, the Elrics were sparring to keep their bodies and minds in shape. Maybe I just need to work this out of my system Edward thought as he took a swing at the armor suit, but immediately revoked his musings as he felt the pinch in his shoulder, back stronger than before. Al at once noticed the momentary breach of focus in his brother’s expression, and the scowl that replaced it. Deciding to stop for the day, he grabbed his partner’s shoulder and steadied him, breaking the momentum of the fight. “Brother, you need to give Winry a call.”  
“Winry?” Ed had considered the idea that the discomfort might be a flaw in his automail itself, perhaps in the nerve connections, but he didn’t want to upset his mechanic, his friend, who took the utmost pride in her work. Telling her that the designs were hurting him would probably hurt her feelings much worse than it was hurting him. “I thought I needed a doctor. I was gonna get it checked out at some point Al, we don’t need to worry Winry with this, it’s no big deal.”  
Al shook his helmet, signalling steadfastness on his part. “You and I both know that you’re hurting, brother. I know you don’t want to upset her, but it’s for the best. She would know how to help you. Plus, maybe it will give us a chance to go home and see everyone again!”  
“We don’t have a home,” Ed wanted to tell him, but Al was right. The fullmetal pondered the idea as they strolled back into town. He did need to tell her about the pains, regardless of how she might feel, and maybe a trip back to Resembool would give them a break from their frenzied pursuit of a way to get their bodies back, and in secret, information on the Homunculi. Rationally, Al had said as much, but Ed didn’t want to leave the libraries and military connections he had in Central, even if for a couple of days. It was rare that he had such an unadulterated swath of time for pursuing his own goals without Mustang stepping in. Maybe he could check some books out for the trip, if he did have to travel home for a bit. Whatever it was shouldn’t take long, after all. Probably just tightening a couple screws or attaching a new model… or something.

 

“Hello! Atilier Garfiel, prosthetic limb fitters. Winry speaking.” Her familiar voice made his breath hitch in his throat- he had half hoped Garfiel would answer the phone.

“Uh… hey Winry, listen, I-”

“Ed?? You idiot, I haven’t heard from you in weeks! Are you and Al ok?”

“Yeah we’re fine. Look, I have a little problem.”

“Is it with your automail? I’ll have you know I left out no screws this time. Whatever you did is all on you. Serves you right for throwing yourself into dangerous situations.”

Ed was taken aback by such a quick resort to hostility. “We are not in dangerous situations, Winry! If you would just listen to me… We’ve been taking it easy, studying up in Central. I just… the ports for my automail have been hurting a lot recently and I don’t know why.”

“Hurting? In what way?”

“It feels like a headache, kinda. It feels like something is pushing on my muscles and bone from the inside. Sometimes it pinches, too.”

“Oh, hm… is it… does it feel like growing pains? The kind you have as a kid?”

“Yeah, I guess it does feel like that.”  


“Alright. Hold on for a moment Ed, let me check on something really quick.”

He felt bad for responding as brusquely as he did. She was probably worried sick about them, which is why he hated letting her in on all his little aches and pains. He didn’t want to burden her with things he could handle on his own.  
Edward heard a clunk as Winry placed the phone on the desk, a creak of a door opening, and muffled voices through the receiver, a bit of shuffling, a static silence. Suddenly, Winry’s voice again. “Hey, still there?”

“Yeah”

“Listen… You need to come home. I mean, to Resembool... But not permanently, just for a little while.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

“If what you’re describing is what we think it is, we are going to have to make some readjustments on your automail.”

“I thought you just did those! It cost me a fortune, I haven’t forgotten. Can’t I just come to Rush Valley?”

“No, that was replacements. Ed, the most likely situation is that you’ve been growing- probably quickly in a short amount of time, which boys like you tend to-”

“What the hell do you MEAN, calling me a little boy! I’m-”

“Shut up, Ed! That’s not what I said! You’ve been growing so quickly that it’s put strain on your automail! We are going to have to readjust the ports themselves, meaning you will need to take at least a couple weeks off from your military life at Central.”

“At least a couple weeks!? How long are these readjustments supposed to take, exactly?” 

“Exactly that, if we don’t waste time. A week for the measurements and construction, a day for the procedure, and another several days for recovery. Maybe even more depending on how your body reacts. They have equipment here in Rush Valley to do the procedure but I would feel better if it were me and Granny doing the work, since we have a good setup in the workshop in Resembool. We know your anatomy better than anyone here in Rush Valley.”  
Both of them blushed on opposite ends of the receiver at the connotation.

“Wait that came out weird.. I mean to say that-”

“It’s ok Win, I know what you mean there, but what exactly do you mean by ‘procedure’?”

“Edward… this isn’t something you can bounce back from from in an afternoon. Reattachment doesn’t take too long but this will be more like the first time, when you were little. You’ll need time to heal.” 

He remembered the first time all too well. The memories flickered there for a moment- the screaming, pounding the operation bed with his one good hand, the smell of blood and disinfectant, being held down as they reshaped his broken limbs, “Ed, _please!_ ” and sobbing “I’m sorry Al, I’m sorry, I…” agony, agony, agony. “This pain is nothing… compared to what he felt.” That’s what he had said, but the pain was terrible. Nothing he ever wished in his right mind to experience again. His stomach churned.

“Winry, You can’t be serious. This can’t be that bad.”

“Maybe not, but it will be a similar procedure. I think… that was a really bad time, for both of you. You’re older now, and stronger. This time you won’t be emotionally traumatized, or, I don’t know, bleeding to death and worrying about Al.”

She was wrong, he was always worrying about Al. But she had a point. Edward sighed, “Alright. Anything I need to do before getting on the train back to Resembool?” He didn’t see any alternative. She had handled the news well, but he was nervous for the upcoming trip home and its consequent activities his mechanic had in store for him.  
“Yeah. Pick up some anti-inflammatory medicine. Let me spell it for you, it kinda has a long name. We’re out and you can’t exactly find stuff like that back home.”


	2. Growing Pains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Throes; noun- intense or violent pains and struggles, especially accompanying birth, death, or great change.

The countryside raced by as the train chugged steadily southward, the sun slowly dipping below the horizon. Al sat still, mostly gazing out at the spring landscape, occasionally glancing at his brother, who was sleeping with his cheek pressed against the window, shirt slightly askew, and left hand tucked right at the hemline of his pants. _He still sleeps with his tummy out. I guess that’s one way to know for sure that we’re still kids._ Ed played tough. He pretended to be an adult all the damn time, showing off to everyone exactly how grown up he was, now that he had committed the taboo and proven himself a prodigy, now that he was a dog of the military. Al knew full well that although he himself was physically bigger, stronger, and more level-headed than his sibling, Ed would always see him as his baby brother, someone to protect and coddle. _Really, I should be fighting for you, you big dummy._ Al usually never meant the mean things he said, but maybe he was just jealous of his brother’s ability to rest so easily in this moment while Al was stuck awake, alone with his thoughts. _We shouldn’t always have to be strong, either one of us. We’re just boys still._ He needed reminding at times. The sleeping alchemist’s hand twitched and he exhaled noisily. Probably dreaming. I miss that. Ed’s head suddenly lolled down and to the side, smacking against the windowpane as the train hit a bumpy spot. Laughter rang out of the hollow suit as Ed shrieked and toppled to the side in surprise, grumbling and blinking in the hard light of the setting sun.

“How was your nap, brother?”

“Same as it always is on a train. Kinda uncomfortable.” Ed rubbed his temple tenderly

“Were you dreaming?”

Ed stopped for a moment and glanced up at his younger brother, then turned his eyes away to study the floor. “I guess. My subconscious won’t let me forget what happened 5 years ago, and here I am, about to supposedly go through with it again.”

“Oh” 

The pregnant pause weighed heavy between them, filled with the _clackaclackaclacka_ of the train wheels along the track, running back to the only home they had since they embarked on this wild goose chase. Back to Winry. 

 

Ed wanted to confide in Al, tell him exactly how he was feeling, but half of it didn’t sit well with him. Most of it was nervousness about his readjustment procedure, probably involving discomfort and lying down a lot, definitely involving needles, hopefully involving some reading time if nothing else. Some of it though…  
Winry was complicated, and more complicated than that was Edward’s feelings towards her. They weren’t kids anymore, as he was painfully aware. Puberty had claimed them both, an experience Al had the fortune not to share. The increase in appetite, his voice cracking while trying to address higher-ups, the growing- well, what there was of it for him anyway- the sudden growth of hair _everywhere_ it seemed, worst of all, the wet dreams, waking in the middle of the night with his chest slick with sweat and legs sticky with his own semen. It was humiliating, stumbling out of bed and into the bathroom to strip off his boxer shorts and mop at himself frantically. He felt unclean, both physically and mentally, for dreaming of her rubbing against him, sighing, planting lips on his and in places he had only touched himself before in the rare moments of privacy allowed to him. He hoped that maybe Al hadn’t noticed, but if the bulk of armor leaning against the wall at the foot of his bed had perceived his midnight flights, he never mentioned it. Maybe he was actually unconscious, or maybe he didn’t want to embarrass Ed any further and simply didn’t bring it up. Sometimes Edward slept through the dreams, only to wake up with an unmistakable wetness blooming on the front of his sleep shorts. Even while conscious, his hormones would hijack his brain at the most inopportune moments, sending a rush of blood directly down to his crotch, and subsequently, to his cheeks. There was only two things he could do, when presented with this frustrating dilemma. He hated it. The Fullmetal Alchemist had a job to do, people to impress, and his brother's body to retrieve. In public, the only remedy was to recite the building blocks of the universe, sometimes more successfully than others. _Hydrogen, Helium, Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Carbon, the building block of skin cells, skin, fuck… Nitrogen, the main component of the atmosphere, Oxygen, Oxygen, breathing, heavy breathing, lungs, her chest encasing her lungs, her chest, fuck, this isn't working._

The other was a little more effective, though much more time-consuming. He had taught himself. In the light hours of the afternoon when Edward could slip back to his hotel room and out of his Fullmetal persona, he became a teenager again, sexually confused and suffering growing pains, away from the gaze of the military and the adults who he couldn’t trust to help him through his time of need. Al would usually stay in the library, unhampered by the primal hunger that seized his flesh brother’s blood day and night. Edward would close the door and shut the blinds, stripping down to his boxers and settling on his bed with eyes closed and only the soft whir of the ceiling fan to accompany him. 

He began by thinking of her hair, soft blond and shining in the sunlight, a bright blue sky to match her eyes, and then a deep red creeping into her lips and soft cheeks, down her neck and under her shirt.

Ed had never seen Winry entirely topless, but he could imagine. 

_She only wore a black tube top while working in the summer, sweat dripping between her breasts and over her stomach, slightly protruding below the belly button as she bent over to concentrate on whatever mechanical task entrenched her focus. Her rolled-down cargo pants sat squarely on her hips, pockets bulging with nuts, bolts, screws and her ever-present wrench. She smelled like oil and iron as Edward would approach her from behind and press his mouth into the crease of her neck, his hands brushing her hair back and working their way down her waist. He would shove her around and pick her up to set her lightly on the table, eye-to-eye in his perfect little world._

He let one knee fall to the side and began to gently stroke himself through his underwear with the left hand, the bulge tenting the cotton slightly. 

_She kisses him deeply, tongue exploring behind his teeth, and his hands cradling her bottom, chests pressed together, her nipples poking through the fabric. Ed leans his head down and lightly nibbles at her neck, kissing and sucking his way down as his hands roughly unzip her shirt and pants to let the cumbersome fabric fall away. Her chest is bare for him. He pushes her back onto the work table and affixes his mouth to one breast, one hand to her cunt..._

Edward’s heart fluttered and a jolt of electricity raced down to his groin. The muscles between his thighs aligned and pulled his penis to full attention as he reached beneath the waistband to grasp the firmness forming there.

_He presses his palm against the wetness between her thighs, his body weight holding her down to the table and her blush deepens, her back arching up towards him. She moans as he pushes a finger into her and curls it up to massage the muscle encasing the front of her pelvis, the sweetest spot in a woman. She shifts her hips deeper into his hand, encouraging his explorations._

The boy’s breath grew heavier as he slid his hand up the length of his cock to massage the head, trailing his fingers along the underside of the glans. His body responded with rapid signals to his brain, _don’t stop._

_He bites her flesh like a ravenous beast, growling and feasting on his prey, the delicious woman laid bare before him. I need you inside me, she says..._

The fantasy was moving too fast, and he knew it, but damn it if he didn’t need to get this done. His hand was slick with sweat and precum, his penis painfully hard. 

_Removing his hand, he unzips his own trousers and pushes his underwear out of the way to let his manhood fall free. She breathily begs him to fuck her, to ride her and make her his. He bites down hard on her shoulder and obliges her, god it’s all for her, all of it. Please, he needs her body now._

Edward’s breath caught in his throat and let a whimper escape as he bucked his hips up into his hand, his automail arm grasping the headboard for stability. 

_He groans from the back of his throat as he presses his cock between her legs, god, she is so wet and tight and incredible. At first she stiffens at the sudden penetration, but she eases her thighs a little wider, tones of desperation ripping the edges of her sigh. Ed pushes deeper until his scrotum is pressing against her skin, buried to the hilt, the head of his cock barely touching the wall of her cervix, the entrance to her womb, and she is his. The sight of it is intoxicating. Her body belongs to him. She shifts her hips around the intruder and grasps at the back of his shoulders but as much as she struggles, he has mounted her and can do what he likes. He takes her on the table, pinning her arms above her head, razing her skin with his teeth, his thighs steadily thumping against the edge of the work table. He fucks her like an animal in heat, both of them trembling, and his cock barely leaves her body as he clings to her for dear life. She responds in favor, bucking her hips, gasping for breath and crying out his name, Ed, Ed, oh God Edward Elric I love you, stay with me…_

Edward Elric shifted onto his side, curling his upper body into himself as his hand furiously pumped away at his straining erection. He struggled to keep himself from creating too much noise, but he audibly panted on each breath. Drawing the automail hand over his mouth to trap whatever ungodly noises escaped him, he exhaled with a strangled moan. He had always been noisy while masturbating. It couldn’t be helped. 

_Ed squeezes his eyes shut and bares his teeth. His muscles are burning and the sweet pressure in his lower abdomen is close to bursting. She pulls him tighter and wraps her legs around his rocking hips._

“Ah, _fuck,_ hng-” 

_Edward presses deep into her and releases his seed into her womb, his lover cries out and accepts all of his release, his, his his she is his and his alone._

... 

Ed’s eyes snapped open, chest rising and falling heavily. His hair was a tangled, sweaty mess against the pillow and he was suddenly seized by guilt. His hand was shaking, stringy beads of cum laced between his fingers.  
_No…_  
no no no she was his friend, his childhood, friend, how could he even… 

... 

“Ed?”  
Just like that, Edward was back on the train, the flush of the vivid fantasy gracing his skin. His ears burned something fierce and he wanted to sink away from the gaze of his brother. Al didn’t understand what this torment was like. 

It was only a dream. Never in a million years would Winry let him do something like that to her. As long as he kept his composure, everything would be ok. He would never hurt her, never force her to do anything she wasn’t ok with. And she would especially never let him fuck her on her work table. That would be an invitation for being beheaded, probably. Despite all the anatomy books and trashy romance novels he had scoured, he still didn’t know enough to approach her with lascivious intent and make good on it. Not like she felt the same anyway…  
_“Sorry, I’m just not into guys who are shorter than me.”_

“Yeah, I… I don’t know. I think I’m just nervous about seeing her again.” 

It had been a while ago, but it hurt nonetheless. He was taller than her now. Maybe things would be different. 

Al knew something was amiss. His brother was never usually so uptight about visiting the Rockbells. Maybe Ed was mad about something the last time Winry came to visit, or maybe it was his automail troubling him again.  
The helmet turned to look out at the racing countryside once more. _He_ was excited to see Winry and Granny and Din at least. 

Night’s shadow enveloped the train as it rushed the Elric brothers home to warm beds and a highly anticipated reunion. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahahah, what a fun ride, writing this here chapter. Thanks to Morg for the helpful insight into male ejaculation, among the finer things in life.  
> I apologize for tense shifting like crazy. Giving readers whiplash is my favorite activity.


	3. Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The reunion holds a little more than Edward bargained for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ended up being way more fluffy than I anticipated.

Winry Rockbell wasn’t exhausted, but she definitely felt tired from the train ride home to Resembool. She had never been able to sleep well on the train. Garfiel had been more than understanding of her situation regarding Ed’s phone call, even going so far as to pack a small bottle of perfume in with her bags. “Your man is going to need all the comfort he can get, young miss!” And he sent her off with a lewd wink. Winry couldn’t keep from giggling. She never wore perfume but her employer’s sincere interest in the wellbeing of her relationship with Edward Elric made her smile.  
_My man…_ It sounded silly, like something romance novel characters would whisper under heated breath. She covered her eyes and sighed, falling back onto the couch. She had to get her head out of the gutter for the next few days at least. She had a job to do, and Edward’s life could even depend on it. She was Winry Rockbell, the talented young engineer, Mechanic Savior of Alchemist Ass. Ed would probably punch her if she ever said that out loud. 

Winry’s thoughts were interrupted by approaching footsteps on the cobble driveway and two familiar voices bickering outside. She nearly fell off the couch in her haste to get to the door, but caught herself and swung it open, revealing the long lost Elric brothers treading up the long hill. They were amidst a heated discussion over what sounded like valence electrons and the properties of Carbon. “Okay but imagine if you were to arrange the atoms like _this!_ ” Ed stopped and squatted down to draw a diagram in the dust to illustrate his point but Al gestured impatiently, yelling “Brother, that breaks all the rules! You can’t have a strong enough covalent bond when they’re arranged like that! Did you even study chemistry?”  
“Of course I did! You’re not getting it, the missing electron is over there!” And without warning, Ed launched himself at the armor suit. The brothers began to brawl, dropping their bags and waging full on hand-to-hand warfare, shouting belligerently about the arrangement of Carbon bonds. Winry looked on, bewildered, unsure if she should throw a wrench between them (or at them) to break up the fray, or just wait for the fuss to run its course. The question was answered for her as Ed suddenly yelled out in surprise. His right leg buckled under him, sending the boy careening sideways into the dirt with a smack as his head hit the ground. _Oh god…_ his automail was worse than she thought. Thank goodness he wasn’t in a real fight or he would have been killed. She would have to do a solid job. Al had already picked him up off the ground by the time Winry ran out to meet them, the dust settling on all three under the hot sun. Edward looked like an angry cat, eyes squinted against the light, hair a furious mess about his face, body cradled in Al’s monstrous arms like a child. “Al, I’m _fine._ Put me down.” he said through gritted teeth, obviously unable to stand or walk, judging by the left leg dangling weakly from his body.  
“No, I think you should stay there. I would carry you myself but I may just drop you. Better let Al do it.”  
Ed glanced in surprise at Winry, suddenly recalling through his pain that yes, he had dropped her that one time in Rush Valley and would probably receive karma for that one day.  
“Nice to see you too, Winry.”  
He scowled, resigned to his fate as Winry grabbed their suitcases and his brother carried him onto the porch and into the house.

The clatter of Winry’s wrench tightening down bolts filled the sunlit living room as a replacement for words between the childhood friends. The problem had been easy enough to determine- one of the bearings had slipped from excess pressure, making the whole artificial leg shift a few millimeters and severing the connection with Edward’s nervous system. It felt like just that- his leg ripping apart at the seam again. The pain had subsided somewhat, but he was collapsed on the couch, steadily controlling his breathing to bring down his heart rate. Winry interrupted her maintenance to dab the sweat from his forehead. “Ed… I’ve never seen you and Al fight like that before. Is everything ok?”  
He opened his eyes to look her dead on. “Not really.”  
Her brow knitted with a small frown. “How bad is it?”  
Ed wanted to sit up but he was resigned to stay still while she performed her administrations to his leg. “It fucking sucks. I haven’t slept well for a week and a half, and I’m constantly hurting so I can’t focus on any of my research.” Well, hurting and suffering from hormones. He didn’t mention the second part. “I’m always in a shitty mood. I feel terrible for being so hot-tempered with Al all the time, he doesn’t deserve this.”  
“Mmhm. Ed, one minute. I need to reattach the nerves. Hold still.”  
Ed didn’t have time to say _“Wait!”_ before Winry cranked down on the final bearing and electricity shot up through his spine, flooded with the sudden sensation of a whole new limb. Sparks danced behind his eyes and he gasped for breath, ears ringing. His leg felt like it was on fire and he wanted so desperately to crawl away from the pain but could only cry out, and suddenly, everything spun back into focus, heart pounding, the scream from his severed limb echoing up and down his nervous system.  
“Ed, breathe.”  
She was there, smoothing his bangs back, one hand on his chest, watching his face closely. He was glad it was her. He wouldn’t be ok with anyone else inflicting this sort of pain on him. Edward let out a slow exhale he had been holding and held her gaze for a while; he wanted to tell her how much he had dreamed about her, how much he hurt every day, how much she mattered to him. He wanted to ask her for help through all the growing pains, emotional turmoil, little aches that burned his torn body, but the only thing that could leave his throat was a strangled “I uh….. Thank you.”  
Winry looked startled for a moment, but began to laugh, much to Ed’s confusion. He was trying to open up to her! Isn’t that what she said she had wanted?  
“You’ve never said that after reattachment before. You must really be out of sorts, Ed.”  
He shifted his head to stare at the back of the couch, trying to keep her from seeing the rouge tint gracing his cheeks. She probably had no idea. The Fullmetal Alchemist was reduced to a puddle of sweat and emotions, being laughed at by a girl who had seen him at his weakest. He wanted to escape from this house, from his stupid artificial limbs, from this situation that had him pinned down and away from his quest.  
“Hey… just rest a minute. I’m going to go check on how preparations are going. Just yell if you need me.” Winry pulled a blanket over him and walked out of the room. He would have liked to get one of his books, but he couldn’t do much other than just lie down for the time being. His head was too cluttered with all the signals coming from his recently attached leg to focus on scientific journals anyhow. His choices had been to reconnect his leg or just leave it off until the readjustment procedure, but because the makeshift operating room wasn’t quite ready, he preferred to have his mobility intact for a couple more days. Edward didn’t want to ask about what exactly the next week would entail, but he knew Pinako would tell him anyway. Being prepared would probably be for the better; he just didn’t want to suffer a heart heavy with anticipation until then. The alchemist watched the dust motes swirling lazily in the afternoon sunlight, letting the bird calls and distant voices of the household soothe him to sleep, the pinpoints of pain in his left leg gently subsiding. 

Iron and oil...

_A sweet laugh, tumbling down the hill, grass tickling his skin and blonde hair pooling on the ground beneath them. The warm sunlight filters around them, the warm earth cradles their entwined forms. She strokes his face, shielding him from the bright light, laughing and soft and beautiful. He clutches her close and draws their bodies into alignment. They are the most perfect transmutation. “Ed, are you there? Are you awake?” She says. “Of course I’m here.” He wraps his arms around her waist and carries her weight with his hips, moving slowly and sweetly. “Winry, _ah…_ ” _

Winry gently shook Edward’s shoulder, watching him curiously. He was definitely dreaming, shifting and forming half words, talking back to some subconscious version of her. He had definitely said her name. _I’m in his dream. He’s dreaming about me._ She didn’t want to disturb his rest, but she had to get him up and moving. She felt weird for walking in on him when he was like this, but how could she have known?  
_“I need you...”_  
Ed’s eyes fluttered momentarily, escaping the haze of his dream, but then he snapped them open to meet Winry’s wide blue gaze. They stared at each other for a long while, the red creeping over their expressions in a mirror image of embarrassment at the realization of what he had just said.  
_Shit, shit shit. Fuck me and fuck my dumb brain._  
“Listen, Ed, ahhh… Granny is making dinner, so…. Can you stand?”  
“Y-yeah, I think so.” He shrugged off the blanket and laboriously pulled himself into a sitting position. Residual waves of pain pressed close around him as Winry helped him stand, his right arm slung over her shoulder and leaning heavily to the side, her hand resting lightly over his own. The three-legged team limped their way into the dining room to settle Ed into a chair, avoiding eye contact and saying nothing. Al was with Pinako in the kitchen; they could hear him chattering about Central and all the interesting people he and his brother had met. Winry knew she should go help her grandmother, but she remained in the dining room a moment longer, gazing at the figure slumped in the chair, oddly quiet, normally so vivacious. His mouth remained a hard line as he studied the floor intently. _At least he still has his stubborn streak. I hope he’s hungry._

Winry padded up the hall to Ed’s bedroom that night on reluctant feet. Her mission had been bestowed upon her by her grandmother: to inform Edward about the coming days. After the embarrassing moment in the living room that afternoon, she begged her granny to do it instead, but Pinako told her she was being ridiculous and sent her off regardless.  
After a moment’s hesitation, Winry quietly rapped on the door. Behind the wall she heard frantic shuffling and a _thud_ , followed by hushed expletives, and then Edward was there in the doorframe, eyes wide, hair undone, cascading over his scarred shoulders... and clothed only in sleeping shorts.  
This was ridiculous, she had seen him like this a million times before. They grew up together, never shy about sharing close contact. She still couldn’t help her heart from hammering in her chest like the mallet she used to shape her broad pieces from sheet metal.  
“Can I come in?”

Wait, that was also weird, she never had to ask him to come in before. She would always enter and leave as she pleased. She supposed that the years they had spent apart had created some strange new chemistry between them, a little more unstable than the youthful camaraderie they used to know. He had seen things she would never understand and she had begun to live her own life as a professional since stationing in Rush Valley. She had to ask permission to enter his space now. He would never let her in without being pushed to open the doors that so carefully guarded his heart. They shut on her the day they burned their home and had not permitted access so easily since. 

Ed stood aside and let her cross into the room. He settled onto his bed and she into the chair next to his desk.  
“What were you doing?”  
Edward’s eyes widened and then rapidly shifted away as he pulled the bed sheets over his lap.  
_Wow, Ed. Real subtle._  
“Just… resting. I’m not entirely used to the reattachment yet, and everything still hurts.”  
“Oh.”  
_Why won’t she stop staring at me._  
He felt unclean again. She probably knew by their encounter this afternoon exactly how undone he was, and he clung desperately to whatever vestiges of his private life he knew he held from her. If she knew, she would hate him. 

“Granny wanted me to let you know that everything is just about ready. Your readjustment is scheduled for the day after tomorrow… in the morning, so… tomorrow you need to keep your diet limited to water and soup. And maybe move around, or go visit your mom, or walk into town with Al since you’ll probably be bedridden for the next week or so. And don’t… don’t do anything dumb.”  
“Winry…” Ed wrung his hands in the bed sheets strewn over his lap. “What dumb thing could I possibly even do here?”  
“I don’t know Ed, pick a fight with a sheep? Get captured by a homunculus? Fall down in a ditch somewhere and let your automail rust to pieces?” She had crossed the room, resting her arms around his shoulders and settling on the bed next to him. “You don’t know how much I worry about you two. It feels like all I can do is sit by and pick up the pieces when you break yourselves. Half the time I don’t know if I should hit you or hug you, Edward.”  
The golden boy straightened his back and inhaled deeply. He felt like jello around her, but despite his trembling hands he hugged her solidly back. _I don’t deserve her, and yet here she is._  
He took a leap of faith.  
“Winry, I’m scared.”  
She lifted her head from his shoulder to make eye contact. “Why? About the surgery?”  
_He’s letting me in._  
“Well… yeah, and just, in general. What if there’s no way… to get what we need to get our bodies back? What if I’m stuck like this, and Al...“  
The phrase “surgery” scared him more than he liked to admit, but it seemed silly for the Fullmetal Alchemist to be in pieces over something he already handled at 11 years old. The mental scarring was as affixed to him as the physical.  
“Shh, Ed, don’t worry about that, not right now. You’ll find a way. You always do.”

Edward closed his eyes and stroked Winry’s hair, enjoying the smell of her, the feeling of her.  


_Iron and oil._  


“Have you considered… maybe we break ourselves… to make an excuse to come see you?”  
He felt Winry tense. She dropped her arms and leaned away to stare at him with a peculiar, unreadable expression on her face. Eyebrows raised, mouth a bit agape, and then hardening, color rising to her cheeks.  


_Shit, I pissed her off._  


Edward winced and raised his arm in defence as she moved towards him, fully expecting a blow from her fists, but everything happened so quickly. She wrenched his arm out of the way, and the contact that sought him was soft and planted squarely on his lips.  
His brain registered what was happening slowly. The room was so hot and heavy, he was laying down, she was sprawled over him, locked at the mouth, only covered by the thin silk of her nightgown. He could feel every inch of her. Winry’s hand was a vicegrip on his arm, holding his body to the bed in this most corporeal of moments.  
_God, it’s so hot in here. When did it get so damn hot._  


He was sweating again, parting his lips to let her in, tasting her. The feeling of Winry was overwhelming and all too real. She kissed him deeply, lifting herself off of him only for a moment to gaze through half lidded eyes down at him, when the expression shifted.  


“Then why don’t you just come see me, you idiot.” And suddenly she was gone, and the moment was gone with her. He was alone again.  


“Winry, wait!”  


But she was already out the door and down the hall, leaving Edward blushing, bewildered and painfully hard.

The comment about breaking himself was meant to be a joke, Winry knew. But there was truth in every jest. She needed to get away from him, needed to focus if she was to be any help to Granny for the next few days. Maybe the Fullmetal Alchemist didn’t have enough self control to keep himself away from her, but Winry Rockbell had enough self control to do it for the both of them.  
_Damn him. And damn me for falling for him._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I had none of this in mind when I set out to write this chapter but you know how characters just kinda do things of their own volition and then you have to write about it? Ok so 
> 
> In other news: I love italics.


	4. Readjustment day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's the big day!

The day before the readjustment operation was hot, and viscous in its passing. Winry avoided Ed like the plague, and he did his best to distract himself from the impending procedure by grabbing his leather-bound copy of _The Multifaceted Properties of Dual-Hexagonal Transmutation Circles_ by a certain _M.J. Croft, Alchemist of the State of Amestris,_ and striking out on his own towards the cemetery. Walking helped to clear his head a bit, though the tight discomfort in his automail ports made every step a little more difficult than usual. 

The cemetery was quiet and warm, a light breeze rustling the leaves from the oak tree above Edward. He stared at Trisha Elric’s grave, and it stared back at him, blank and giving no comfort to her son. Edward wasn’t entirely sure what he hoped to accomplish by coming here. Maybe he subconsciously wanted to look for clues, but about what? Philosopher’s stones? Homunculi? Winry? His mother’s grave offered no explanations, only silent peace. 

The boy sighed and settled his back against the nearest tree to escape the relentless sun, cracking open the tome he had dragged along with him. Time always passed a little more fluidly when Edward had his nose in a book, even if it was a dry read like this one – he was never one to turn down a text for fear of letting an iota of information slip through his fingers. The day dragged on as he plodded through, page by page, distracting him from his growling stomach and anxiety hovering overhead. He didn’t know how long it had been since he left the house. the words were swimming before him, a jumble of alchemic formulas and flavorless analogies. This was hopeless. His head fell back against the tree bark and he slumped slightly, the crickets of the hay luring him away from consciousness.

_Winry has pieces of his body in her grip. She is yelling, screaming at him. He has done something wrong, he upset her and he doesn’t know how to fix it. She’s crying, “Ed!... Ed!! Where the hell are you?” I’m here! He wants to tell her he is right here, but his arm is slipping out of her hand, dissolving into strips and floating away into the atmosphere. She grabs for his shoulders, his hair, his waist but his body is coming apart, ripping at the seams. He has done something terrible, and now they were all paying for it. It doesn’t hurt, but she is trying so hard to hold him together when all the metal in the world couldn’t keep his beating heart from slipping away like dust._

“Ed! Brother! Please wake up, Winry was wondering where you went”  
Edward’s head was foggy and he felt like his eyes were filled with grit, but he did his best to bring himself upright, swaying unsteadily as he returned to the land of the waking. Al hovered over him, bracing his hands in case Ed were to fall again. “I’m good, just needed a nap. It doesn’t help that they won’t let me eat anything.” It frustrated Ed that he wasn’t allowed any real food, but he wasn’t one to contradict Pinako and Winry’s expertise in the field of Automail readjustment. 

“Oh, that’s so that the anaesthesia will work properly.” Al explained, and straightened himself out, seeing that his brother was sufficiently steady.  
The brothers walked back to the house together, pointing out familiar landmarks and reflecting on days gone by. Any distraction was welcome.

 

Ed slept fitfully that night. Hunger gnawed at his belly and his dreams were haunted by a terrifying combination of disjointed bodies and needles and wires. The room was too hot, and the memory of the previous night still hang thick in the air over his bed, a cloud that even the whirring ceiling fan couldn’t dispel. His long nap that afternoon probably had affected his sleep schedule, but normally he could nap anywhere and still get in his full night’s sleep. He tossed and turned between dreams of coming apart and dreams of being impaled, of dying on the operation table, losing Winry to Ishvalan extremists, and losing Al to the gates of truth permanently.  
The sun was peeking through his bedroom window and the birds were singing it seemed not long after he had finally gotten some sleep, signalling the start of the dreaded operation day. 

Al gently knocked on his brother’s door and entered the room to find Edward seated at the desk, staring out the window, dressed loosely in a black shirt and pants, his automail leg tucked close to his chest. When he heard the clunk of Al’s armor in his doorway, Edward turned around to look at him, eyes dull and hair undone.  
“Good morning, Brother, Granny and Winry have everything set up and I get to help them, so you’ve got the best team ever on your side!”  
“Mornin. You sound oddly excited Al. Maybe you should be a surgeon some day.”  
“Oh I… hadn’t thought about that. Maybe! I’d like to study as much as I can about medical alchemy, so who knows. There’s probably a cross-disciplinary field for that. Either way it’s time to go, if you’re ready.”

The finality of that phrase struck Edward as unsettling, but he kept his expression even. He carefully got up and let his brother lead him down the hall towards the half of the house that contained the official Rockbell workshop as well as the inpatient treatment room. Ed normally avoided this end of the house. The smell of the room brought back a flood of unpleasant memories that made his stomach do flips and his stumps ache like hell. As promised, as soon as Al led him through the doorway, he felt the nausea in the back of his throat make its unwelcome appearance. 

The room was as white as he remembered. Pinako and Winry, hair tied back, were busying themselves with last minute checks, inspecting the tips of needles and smoothing out the wiring of the calibration machine stationed next to the operation bed. Pinako turned as she heard the boys enter. “Ah! So you made it. We weren’t sure if you would come, but it wouldn’t be very sporting to be late for your own party, eh Edward?

The joke was meant to lighten the mood, but Ed could only smile meekly in response. He was in good hands, he knew it. This was not that big of a deal and he was just being a baby over the whole thing. All he had to do was lay down and let them handle everything… not exactly his favorite activity, but it beat suffering through life with ill-fitted automail ports.

“Is everything ready?”  
“Yes, Alphonse. Edward, could you please take off your clothes and lie down for us?”  
_I’ve done this before. I was really little when I did this before. They’ve done this lots of times before._  
The reassurances did little to still his pounding heart as Ed pulled his shirt off and slipped out of his pants, stepping onto the cold tile. He was shaking as he settled onto the bed, reduced to nothing but his boxer shorts, but the room was a comfortable temperature.  
_I have to calm down! I’m the Fullmetal Alchemist for heck's sake, youngest State Alchemist in history. Prodigy, big brother and protector. I survived the taboo and I can get through this._  
“Alright, now just relax. You might experience a little discomfort but you’ll be asleep before you know it.”  
His first port attachment had been done without any form of anaesthesia. It had been brutally painful and long; he had passed out a couple of times from the pain, but this time it would all be different, and hopefully much shorter. Advances in the medical field had made things easier for everyone.  
The Rockbells’ able hands maneuvered him, shifting his left arm so it laid palm up and swinging a bright light to sit directly overhead. Edward felt naked under the lights, torso only covered by a white sheet that was carefully tucked over his thighs and across his stomach. Pinako spoke softly to him, explaining exactly what they were doing as Winry moved to the left of him. He made the mistake of glancing over to her, seeking out eye contact, but instead saw her raise the tip of a needle up to the light and flick it lightly before bending down towards his exposed arm.  
_Shit. I hate needles._  
Ed whipped his head the other way and screwed his eyes shut just in time for the pinch in the crook of his elbow. He was glad it was her. Though she didn’t meet his eyes, he trusted her with his life. She was the best mechanic in the world, and he wouldn’t let anyone else touch him like this.

The pinch of the IV was replaced with a cool sensation and the feeling of tape being pulled across his skin. He eased one eye open and glanced at his arm to see the tube disappear into the vein of his arm. It both fascinated him and made him a little nauseous. Rough hands grabbed the sides of his head and forced it to look straight up into the blinding lights as they strapped tubing across his face, uncomfortably invading his nostrils, as another pair of hands laid something soft across his chest. He struggled away from the intrusion, but Pinako’s voice butted in and her hands held him firmly in place. “Ed, lie still please. You’re just as bad as when you were little.” His breath was forced from him as the strap was cinched down suddenly, but then loosened again just enough for him to fill his lungs. “How’s that Ed? Too tight?” Winry’s voice.  
“No… but why? What is this?”  
It was Pinako who replied. “We need to keep you still as possible. We have known grown men to leap up and run out on us before, and we can’t take any chances.”

The thought of it made Ed uneasy. Why would people walk out if they were sedated? Did the sedation fail sometimes? He didn’t know exactly how it worked but he figured it was a tricky mix of chemicals that maybe didn’t work quite right. Any time one messed with the human body there was room for plenty of errors. 

The Rockbells were moving again, communicating steadily with each other through a series of pre-checks. The room was warm but the equipment surrounding him was cold- a cold drip in his arm, cold air being pushed into his airway through the tubes affixed to his face, cold metal clamped around his middle finger, a rapid beeping softly radiating from somewhere to the left of him. Edward realized it was the sound of his own heart. He tried to slow his breathing and ease his mind, bringing the rapid pulse down to a more controlled rhythm, but it sped back up again as soon as he heard Pinako give the order to disarm him of his automail. On a count of 1… 2… 3, the Rockbells wrenched the bearings loose on his arm and leg at once, relieving the pressure of his limbs and severing the artificial nerve connection. He fought back a scream, instead releasing a strangled yelp and straining against the strap holding his chest down. Detachment didn’t hurt nearly as bad as reattachment, but damn it if it didn’t still hurt like hell. 

Al was immediately at his side, holding his shoulder down and pushing his bangs back from his face. “Try not to move so much, brother. Just relax.”  
Sound advice, but more easily said than done.  
“Winry, let’s go easy on it here. We don’t want to take any unnecessary risks. He’s already stressed as it is.” Pinako’s voice came from the right, and Winry’s responding affirmation followed from the left. Edward felt a tug on in the crook of his remaining arm and another cold wave washed through him.  
“You’ll start to feel a little drowsy now, Ed. Try to count out loud, backwards from ten.”  
“Ten… nine… eigh… s…”  
He could have sworn that he got to one, but when he reached seven, the room was spinning and his mouth wouldn’t move of its own volition. Winry’s blue eyes gazed steadily into his face. it felt like he was underwater, sound coming through a tunnel and his vision blurring at the edges. He was helpless now, short a leg and an arm, strapped to a bed and drugged beyond help.  
_I hope they wake me before I have to leave. I’d hate to get on the train before saying goodbye._

The table slipped away beneath Edward and the first dreamless sleep he had in months claimed him.

 

Al watched on, from the bedside, more interested than concerned as grandmother and granddaughter began dismantling Edward’s shoulder port. They had him squeeze his brother’s hand and call to him to make sure Ed was sufficiently sedated, but it was clear that Ed was out, though the steady beeping from the heart monitor reassured Al that he was in fact, still alive. Most of the shoulder port was obscured by Ed’s body, and Al didn’t want to disturb the mechanics to ask to come over and watch, so he simply sat, holding his brother’s limp hand. That was a job he could do, even if he couldn’t feel the warmth of it. Ed’s chest rose and fell steadily and his expression was peaceful, like the deep sleep he had experienced before his growth spurt. It made him look younger, less like the Fullmetal Alchemist, and more like his brother, Edward Elric. Alphonse had forgotten what exactly he looked like, but he supposed that his body was similar to what he saw in his brother. Golden and hardened from years of training. Al pushed a few stray strands of hair out of Ed’s face again and settled back in his chair to watch the Rockbells work.

Winry had steeled her mind the moment she walked out of Ed’s bedroom. Until this was all over, she would view him as a patient. Letting emotions get in the way would cause her hands to shake and her mind to become clouded. She would be no help to anyone unless she could keep a clear head, much more easily accomplished while Ed was unconscious, to be sure. Readjustment was nasty business. It consisted of removing bits of metal from irritated flesh and reconstructing the port itself to fit a whole new musculature, being careful to not clip any essential arteries or tendons.  
The base of the automail itself was attached to bone, and in Ed’s case, to the scapula and clavicle of his right shoulder, branching down to his ribcage for additional support. They had taken painstaking measures to disinfect the whole area before operating, even rubbing down Al’s shell with a sterilizing solution, but there was always risk of infection. 

Winry’s hands were steady as she worked. When they were eleven, she had merely handed the tools to Granny as an assistant, but now she knew more and could be a bigger help, staunching blood flow where needed and holding open ports and valves so Granny could shift and reattach the whole arrangement. Luckily, it was engineered so that the system would simply lock into place once it was re-fitted, and they had constructed a series of additional panels to make up for the considerable growth in Ed’s frame. The procedure was going as smoothly as it could. 

 

...

 

_A deep pounding, a pulling sensation. Something small and cool, why won’t the beeping stop? Can someone please make it stop? It’s making my head hurt. I can’t move for some reason.  
Edward Elric, that’s my name. I’m all alone, I’ve done something terrible and they’re pulling me apart for it. They’re taking my arm and leg, but they won’t stop there, I have to get out. _

 

He opened his eyes and was at the gate of truth again. The stone pressed hard against his back and his vision was flooded with white light. Ed struggled to breathe under the weight pressing at his chest. He didn’t remember how he got here but the payment was being extracted from his body as he stood. The burning, pulling sensation radiating from his right side was unmistakable, unbearable. He tried to turn his head to look at where the Truth was ripping his shoulder apart, but his head felt like it was full of lead and he wasn’t sure which way was up. Voices began to filter through the doorway, and he realized with a sickening feeling that it was Winry’s. She came into view, hair pulled back and eyes wide in shock, and began to speak, but he couldn’t tell one way or another what she was saying. 

_What the fuck, why is she here! Winry can’t be here, they’ll take her too._

He reached out for her in desperation. He needed to get her back through the portal before the phantom tendrils could rip her apart too. _Go!_ He tried to say, _Please, get out. I can’t lose you too._ But she remained steadfastly next to him, shouting to something or someone else and trying to keep his rapidly disappearing flesh and bone in place. _It’s no use. She can’t hear me. I’m going to lose everything._

Ed felt the shadowy hands reach out and grab his left arm to pull it back against the door. He struggled against it, pushing at the weight holding his chest back. Why couldn’t he move? 

Edward sought Winry’s eyes, hoping to get a last long look before he vanished completely. The pain in his shoulder screamed throughout his whole body, getting worse the longer he remained here. This wasn’t how he imagined he would go.  
At last, a wave of heaviness washed over him as the door opened, the scene in front of him disappearing through a tunnel. Ed was thankful for the promise of rest. He felt his muscles relax, letting his eyes close and the dreamless sleep claim him once more. 

...

 

The strangled breathing was the first alert they had that Edward was conscious, but when she stood up to inspect him and saw that his eyes were open, she panicked.  
“Granny… he’s awake. Did I get the dosage wrong?”  
“No dear, I told you to go light. Push a few more milligrams, we just need to keep him still until it takes effect.” As Winry took her instructions and began to move, Ed lifted his arm weakly, never taking his eyes off of hers. His look was unfocused, feral, worrying.  
“Al, would you please hold his hand down? There are a few wrist restraints in that shelf over there, we may need to keep him settled until he’s in his right mind again.”

Edward seemed to only be half-conscious, somewhere in between waking and a nightmare by the looks of it. His pupils contracted and he struggled in vain against the padded strap holding his chest in place. His heart rate had audibly picked up.  
“Ed, can you hear me? Can you understand what I’m saying?” _Is he in pain? Dreaming?_  
He blinked and tried to speak back to her, but all that escaped his throat was a ragged sob as Al fastened his wrist to the bed. Winry silently begged the drugs to take effect quickly. She had seen people wake up screaming, but she hadn’t seen this kind of emotion from Edward before, a wild desperation that marked his movements the edges in his breaths..  
She counted the seconds until his eyes closed again and the frantic beeping from the heart monitor subsided into a steady pulse. Her palms were sweating and she had forgotten how to breathe. 

Pinako assured her that it wasn’t her fault- better to go lighter on the drugs than to risk killing a patient with overdosage. Luckily, the work on his shoulder was almost finished, and the leg readjustment would go significantly more quickly, as they only had one connection point to worry about rather than a whole shoulder system. Al looked on as they worked, saying nothing and lightly stroking his brother’s hand, being careful not to dislodge the monitor on his finger. 

The remainder of the procedure remained uninterrupted. Ed slept through the rest of it, his chest peacefully rising and falling, the nightmare he had woken to already forgotten. 

 

Winry and Pinako finished by the mid-afternoon, securing the calibration tubes into his newly assembled ports and wrapping his chest and leg in compression bandages. The whole affair had lasted around 4 and a half hours, but to Winry, it felt like days. On shaky legs she walked to the bathroom to splash some cold water on her face and wash her hands. Her arms were dark with patches of dried blood and she flicked a piece of muscle tissue off of her apron.  
She reflected that this wouldn’t have been so bad if it were anyone but him.  
As Winry towel-dried herself, all the tension she had been holding in rushed out of her lungs at once. She collapsed against the wall to sit down on the floor. Granny had left the room to make lunch, leaving Al and Winry alone to watch over their comatose patient. Ed waking up in the middle of the operation had freaked her out, so she sought to regain her composure before returning. She didn’t want Al to see her shaken up.

The room was silent when Winry eventually returned, save for the low thrum of the calibration machine and Ed’s steady breathing. The scene looked just like it had all those years ago, except that the figure on the bed was more of a man than a boy now. Tubes and wires sprouted from his shoulder and leg sockets, and a white towel laid over his eyes to let him rest more easily. He had grown a lot the last few years, in more ways than one. His muscles were more defined and his hair was long and loose against the pillow. He nearly took up the whole length of the bed, when before he had barely covered half of it. No wonder he needed readjustments so badly. The original port model they had installed allowed some room for growth, but it could only handle so much before having to be replaced.

Winry pulled up a chair beside his bed and rested her head in her hands. Al wiped away a bit of drool pooling at the corner of Ed’s mouth and stood up, asking if Winry wanted to go help Granny with lunch or if he should. She told him that it was alright, she would stay here. 

As the armored suit clanked his way out of the room, Winry tucked the sheets up and around Ed’s neck, careful to avoid the surgical sites on his chest. The peace of the moment enveloped her like a warm blanket, and she settled back into her chair with one arm laid across his stomach and head resting lightly on his waist. He didn’t know she was there, but the closeness comforted her nonetheless. Winry closed her eyes and let her exhaustion lull her to sleep. The hard part was done, and now only recovery remained.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know a lot of medical equipment of the caliber I mentioned weren't widely used until the 50's, but we can have some liberties since Ed's original automail attachment scenes had similar stuff, right?


	5. Recovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edward recovers bit by bit. 
> 
>  
> 
> _This isn’t something you can bounce back from from in an afternoon...You’ll need time to heal._

Edward Elric’s eyes were open but nothing was in focus. A rag had been laid over his face to dim the lights, but it wasn’t entirely opaque, giving him a foggy view of the bright ceiling directly overhead. He shut his eyes briefly to ease the pressure in his head a little. He felt so _heavy_ , and couldn’t quite remember where he was or why he was there. After a few minutes of letting his eyes rest, he cracked them open again to gather more clues about his situation. A white room, a soft strap secured across his chest and something heavy on his waist. A deep rumble that seemed to be as much inside his brain as outside. _Oh yeah, I remember this._ Everything was becoming clear again- the Rockbell’s house, readjustment, two nights ago in his bedroom… Edward felt like he had been run over by a truck, and the buzzing in his head didn’t help. He remembered that static – _“This will feel a little strange, Ed. The nerve connections need to synch with your body. It’s like a test, working out the kinks between your automail and your brain. It won’t work right if the connection is interrupted, so just lay still.”_

Last time he had been hooked up for a full 24 hours, but maybe it would need less time now, since he had already been calibrated once. What was half of 24? Did it matter how many years? 20… 6… _Fuck,_ the signals darting in and out of his brain down to his ports was making thinking impossible. 

Ed mustered what strength he had to tilt his head to the side and take inventory of the damage done. The movement brought on a queasy feeling in the back of his throat and the rag fell off, bringing everything into piercing clarity. He could see that his upper torso had been mummified in clean, white bandages, and there were small wires sprouting from patches that adorned his chest and ribcage. Though he couldn’t see the full extent of his reconstructed port, it looked like a mess to him. The room smelled like blood and disinfectant, a dark red tinged the edges of the bandages; a fiery ache had begun to seep in through his consciousness as he tried to shift his head around to see down the length of his supine body. Even little movements were costing him spurts of pain and twinges of nausea.  
He noted with relief that the weight on his waist was in fact Winry’s head. She was sleeping peacefully, nose buried in the blanket covering his torso and and hand resting on his stomach. He could feel her breath against his skin and it gave him goosebumps. It felt nice to have her there; moments where they were both calm, close, and safe had become increasingly rare these days. 

Ed felt chilled despite the blankets tucked around his torso and legs. The material was thin, and the room seemed to have gotten much colder than before. He made to to draw the blankets closer around himself but his left arm didn’t respond to the command. Annoyed, Ed rolled his head back towards the left.  
_Shit!_  
The exertion of the muscles in his neck caused starbursts behind his eyes and the static in his head to scream against his skull. His shoulder pounded furiously, red hot and agonizing – he cried out and involuntarily struggled away from the pain to no avail. To add insult to injury, his stomach heaved and sent him into a fit of coughing to choke back the bile in his throat.  
_Idiot, you shouldn’t have moved._

Edward’s explosive reaction woke Winry with a jolt. Her parents’ instincts for quick action had been thoroughly instilled in her – she was immediately there, gently pressing his good arm down and shifting his head straight up again to ease the tension in his shoulder. The tearing sensation ebbed slowly away as she rubbed his chest and talked him softly through his momentary recovery. “Shhh, Ed. Don’t move, ok? It will rip out the stitches. You’re safe, you’re ok. Just breathe and count backwards from 10 in your head.”

He did as she asked, all the while watching her unwavering expression. The violent upheaval in his stomach quieted and the ripping sensation in his shoulder receded to a steady burn.

“Can you understand me?”

His ports still hurt like hell, but his mind cleared enough for him to speak back to her.

“Yeah” he hissed weakly through his teeth. 

“How are you feeling?”

She looked so tired, bags under her eyes and stray strands of hair creating a halo around her. There was a small spatter of blood across her nose, probably his.

“You look…. Like shit.” Ed slurred.

“Gee, thanks Ed, so do you. But how do you feel? Are you cold at all?”

“A bit.”

The conversation was taking much more energy than he had expected. His eyes drooped and he felt Winry’s weight leave the bed as she told him she would go fetch more blankets.  
Ed was barely conscious when she returned from the closet down the hall, but he managed to speak one more time before falling asleep again.

“Winry… don’t leave.” 

She smiled as she tucked the blankets in around his legs, torso, and neck, leaving only the surgical sites and his face exposed.  
Winry pushed his bangs out of Ed’s face and carefully replaced the rag over his eyes. 

 

Pinako had determined that someone had to be with the patient around the clock while he was the most critical stage of his recovery. Any movement could disrupt the calibration process, unfortunately fragile and critical to the installation of automail. Al was the obvious candidate for the night shift, being unable to sleep, but Winry brought in a cot all the same, insisting that if he needed any immediate medical attention, she would prefer to be close at hand.

Ed slept through most of the night, fading in and out of consciousness every few hours or so. Normally he would wake, unfocused and dizzy, and then fall back asleep within a few minutes. Around 4am however, he awoke from a particularly vivid recurring dream he hadn’t had since leaving Central. 

_Oh no._

It was that one, with Winry at her desk.

_God dammit._

Even drugged and tied to a bed, Edward’s hormones still managed to make a mess of things, sticky and hot against his thighs. Luckily it was nowhere near his leg port, but it was uncomfortable and had soaked into his boxer shorts. 

Ed weighed his choices carefully. He had three options: ask Al to take the restrains off, have Winry clean him up, or let it dry and wait until morning. The chances of the first working were slim-to-none; Al had been given strict orders not to free him unless it were an emergency, but Ed knew that if he didn’t take care of it now, Pinako would surely discover it in the morning on her daily inspection. The thought of his surrogate grandmother being anywhere near his private parts made Ed’s face burn. And Winry was out- it was awkward enough between them as it was, and if she were to ask him about what brought on his nocturnal emissions…

Ed softly called out into the darkness, “Hey Al”

“Brother? Is everything ok?” Came the reply from somewhere to the left.

“Can you undo my restraints? It’s an emergency.”

“What kind of emergency? Can I get something for you?”

“No, I uh… I really have to go to the bathroom.”  
It wasn’t exactly a lie.

“Oh… there’s a bedpan for that, brother. Let me get Winry, she can help you.”

Ed panicked.  
“No, please don’t get Winry up-”

“And why shouldn’t I be gotten up?” Came a groggy voice from the other end of the room.

“Nothing!” Both of the brothers said in unison. 

"Guys, I..." The sleep deprivation gave her pause before slowly rephrasing. "I'm already up, so what does it matter anyhow. Al, would you go fetch a clean towel from the linen closet?”  
Winry’s approaching footsteps made Ed’s heart hammer in his chest. He couldn’t hide anything from her while he was like this, entirely dependent and fuzzy-headed.  
“What’s the matter, Edward?” 

“Nothing. Go back to bed.”

“I thought you said it was an emergency. Is everything ok?” 

“No, Winry, please, I’m alright.”

“Why are you acting so weird? Are you in pain still?”

As she said it, he knew he was done for. She had begun a casual patient inspection to make sure everything was intact, gently brushing over his ports and neck, checking his pulse, making sure his restraints weren’t too tight. He bit his lip when her hands reached the lymph nodes near his groin. 

“Ed, what on earth…”

She had seen him naked before, nearly dying on an operation table during his first automail surgery. She had inspected him like this before. There were very few places she wasn’t familiar with on him from a medical standpoint, but it took her a moment to register exactly what she was feeling.

“Did you....?” 

Ed’s face burned hot. He was glad it was so dark in the room or else he might have died then and there of shame.

Al chose exactly the wrong moment to re-enter the room, upon which Winry sent him directly back out on another mission to wet some rags for her with warm water. Ed silently thanked her for sparing Al any details of his humiliating situation.

“Ed, how long has this been going on?” Winry asked in a low voice once Al was out of earshot. 

Ed’s stomach rolled.  
“A year? Two years? Long time.”

She let out a breathy “oh.. ” and patted his cheek. “God, I’m so sorry. It must be hard for you, up in Central...”

Ed was dumbfounded. “You’re not mad?”

“Ed, why would I be mad? You’ve gone through puberty a little later than most boys is all. Your military double life probably hasn’t helped your growth at all either. This is perfectly normal for someone your age.” 

_Oh…_

Ed felt light-headed, his relief almost palpable. He felt stupid for not reading about it. He always had just figured that being enlisted in the military so young and the incident with The Truth had somehow messed him up, though he didn’t know exactly how. Hearing Winry validate those nights alone, trying to scrub his shame off of his skin felt like a benediction from God himself. 

Winry left Ed alone and hurried to the doorway just as Al re entered, hastily concocting a request for him to make her tea, apologizing for sending him on so many missions. To make it better, she planted a light kiss on his helmet as thanks. Al laughed quietly and said told her it was no problem, leaving Ed and Winry blessedly alone once again. 

She set to work, pulling off his boxers and easing them around his leg port and calibration tubes, then mopping around his penis with a warm rag. Winry’s gentle administrations reminded him of when he was a little kid, getting rag baths from his mom when he refused to take a proper bath. 

Despite the similarities, he focused steadfastly on his mother to keep his mind off of the fact that it was _Winry’s_ hands poking around down there. Dwelling on that idea could be dangerous, considering what she was working around.  
The mechanic finished up and wrapped his lower torso back up in blankets, then taking his boxers out to wash.

Edward laid awake as Winry rinsed out his soiled underwear and hung it up to dry, listening to the low thrum of the calibration machine. This was the longest period of time he had been awake since the surgery – he felt much more lucid than he had before, as the static in his head had died down some, but the pain in his stumps had returned, loud and clear, erasing any possibility of sleep. It got worse as the drugs gradually wore off, and Winry returned to find him broken out in a cold sweat and clenching the blankets with his one good hand.  
She immediately moved to push a few more milligrams of painkiller into his IV bag. The effect was noticeable: in a matter of minutes Ed went from gasping for breath and shaking to letting the tension in his muscles out and breathing normally once again. 

“Better?”

 

“Much, thanks. That’s good stuff.”

“Only the best. It will make you a bit drowsy though, so close your eyes and rest for a bit more, ok? 

Edward didn’t argue. His jaw slackened and his body went limp as a ragdoll’s within a couple minutes.

Winry noticed that the sun was beginning to peek through the windows and spill onto the floor at her feet. _So much for a good night’s rest._  
She let down the blinds to retain some darkness in the white room, and with her patient sleeping peacefully again, tiptoed out into the hall to join Al for morning tea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little shorter chapter this time but more content is on the way 8)


	6. Reckoning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Complications and resolutions, and almost sexy times.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: this may or may not have been based on my own experiences post-surgery. (Chapter contains vomiting)

The next time Ed woke he was alone. With the rag still over his eyes he couldn’t tell exactly what time of day it was, but it was definitely light outside, judging by the bird calls and faint light filtering in through the cloth. The buzzing from the calibration tubes was gone, but his head felt incredibly groggy nonetheless; he supposed it was the drugs. His ports hurt, but the searing agony from before was gone, a manageable situation all in all, sans the ability to read or function like a regular human being with all four limbs intact.

Not long after he regained consciousness, Ed heard the heavy clank of his brother’s footsteps enter the room. Ed wanted to signal him over, but when he tried to speak, something lodged in his throat and sent him into another fit of coughing.  
Though not his intended action, the commotion quickly brought Al to the bedside. Lacking any medical training, the younger brother was unsure of what to do, but he placed a gentle hand on Ed’s chest and sat calmly with him until the coughing subsided and the infirm Elric was able to breathe normally again.  
“Brother, are you ok? Don’t speak, just give me a thumbs up”  
Ed curled his left hand into a fist, breathed in and out to make sure everything was working normally, and gave Al the all clear.

“Ah, good. Take it easy now.” 

Al removed the cloth on Ed’s face and wiped the sweat off of his forehead. 

“Winry’s napping but she told me to let her know when you were awake. Can I get you anything?” 

Ed carefully cleared his throat and quietly asked what time it was.

“A quarter past noon. I’ll be right back, hold on a minute.” 

Ed let his eyes rest until he heard Winry’s soft footfalls in addition to Al’s reenter the room. She talked them both as she checked his pulse, inspected his surgical sites, and applied fresh bandages around the healing scar tissue. 

“How does this feel?” 

Ed grunted as she poked around his healing ports.

“Are you feeling any better today?”

“Yeah. Lots. Except for feeling like a corpse.”

She brushed off his sarcasm. “How’s the room temperature? You were pretty cold yesterday”

“It’s fine.”

“Do you think we could try to sit you up? You need to eat something solid so we can get you off of the IV and onto pills instead that won’t make you drowsy.”

Ed felt groggy still, but the idea sounded good. Anything to get him back to normal any faster sounded good.

Winry and Al set to work propping pillows up behind his head and undoing the straps that held his chest and wrist to the bed. Winry instructed her assistant on how to go about supporting Ed into a sitting position – he felt her warm hands supporting his right shoulder blade and the large, cool hands of his brother under his left arm. On a count of 3, they began to gently lift him up, and the room spun crazily. “Wait…” he hissed, and the arms supporting him stopped moving. His head dropped back and he sucked in air, trying to still the churning in his stomach.

“Careful, Ed! Just a bit more. Once you’re settled it will feel better.” 

They began to lift again, and Ed shut his eyes tightly against the pain and violent sickness building in his guts. 

_I felt fine before. I should have just stayed laying down._

He ended up upright, slightly inclined, supported on a heap of pillows. The hands supporting him eased away and set about tucking in the blankets once more and making sure all the wires and tubes were suitably out of the way. As the roar of movement behind Edward’s eyes died down, he cracked his eyes open and blinked to bring everything back into focus. Winry and Al were watching him carefully, like scientists surveying an injured animal.

Ed’s frustration was starting to get to him.

He was tired, disoriented, and without an arm or a leg, as well as suffering a moderate amount of pain that was beginning to creep back into his chest and leg. He was used to feeling exposed around Winry while undergoing automail repairs, but he wasn’t used to feeling quite so weak. Ed wanted to get up and walk around, hit something, get outside, _read_ even, but he could barely manage being lifted into a sitting position. His scowl made Winry giggle.

“Alright big guy, let’s see about getting some food in you.”

He began to protest.

“I’m not-” _sigh_ , “Ok, fine.”

“How does oatmeal sound?”

He stuck his tongue out and wrinkled his nose.

“Don’t be such a baby. The sooner you get your strength back the sooner you can get up and about.” Winry patted his knee and turned to exit the room. Al stayed behind to keep his brother company.

The armored suit leaned in and fiddled with a wire attached to an electrode pad affixed to his chest. He was quiet for a moment, and then quietly asked-

“How does it feel?”

Ed put a hand on his shoulder.

“Alphonse, It hurts. A lot. And when it doesn’t hurt, I feel tired and weak, like I don’t have any control over my own body.”

Al paused, then spoke again.  
“But how does it feel to have automail?”

He smiled. “Well, the installation sucks, and the maintenance is annoying, but I can do pretty cool stuff with it.”

“No, brother, I mean… what does it feel like? Physically? This is the price you had to pay and I want to know how it feels. Is it like a regular arm?”

He had to think for a moment. It had been so long since he had felt his natural limbs.

“Not exactly. The weight is in different places and whenever there’s a low pressure system in the atmosphere, my stumps hurt like hell and it feels like my nerves are all messed up.”

 

“And that’s why storms bother you so much?”

Ed nodded.

 

“That makes sense. The metal would contract and expand with different temperatures too, right? What does that feel like?”

“I don’t feel it that much, ‘cause cells do that too. I know the alloys they use try to mimic the same rate so it doesn’t cause any discomfort. Can’t be any worse than having no body, eh?”

“Oh. Yeah, I guess”

Ed couldn’t read his brother’s expression but he would have bet a million cenz that another question was on the tip of his tongue. Winry returned with a steaming bowl of oatmeal before he could have asked it. Edward made a retching noise and pinched his nose with his one good hand to make his disapproval of her culinary choices clear, but his practitioner-mechanic payed no heed to his antics and forced the wretched bowl of stuff on him regardless.

...

Eating was a disaster. 

Ed knew he had to metabolize _something_ in order to move off of the IV, but every time he choked a spoonful of oatmeal or a bit of water down, it would send him into convulsions, bringing up his attempted meal as its contents burned his tongue and filled the room with the smell of stomach acid. “Be glad you don’t have a nose, Al” he wheezed between fits of coughing. 

It had come on suddenly, and it was scary. He would panic in moments when he felt like he couldn’t breathe, but the combined sensation of Winry’s supporting hand on his chest and the repeated mantra of _you’ve faced worse, you’re the Fullmetal Alchemist,_ helped him keep some form of calm and continue the struggle with his body. He had vomited before when he had fevers as a kid, but rarely this violently. His spasming diaphragm gave him barely a second to draw in air before sending him into another series of retches and coughs. “Ed, breathe!” Winry would remind him through gritted teeth, though she oftentimes forgot to herself. _I’m trying_ , he wanted to tell her as he tried his damndest to get enough oxygen.

After the first two attempts, Winry let her patient rest. He didn’t say anything, glaring at the sheets covering his legs and occasionally raising a hand to see if it would stop shaking. 

“How do you feel?” She asked tentatively. “Tired.” he replied. _Unsteady, useless, exhausted._  
His heart was still hammering in his chest from the effort of throwing up, and his ports were throbbing in time with the blood flow pulsing through the mangled flesh.  
An hour later, they tried again with water, which blessedly stayed down. After thirty minutes unaffected by convulsions, she suggested switching to a banana, hoping that a softer (and tastier) substance would stay down.

After a renewed fit of heaving, Ed was equal parts angry and exhausted.  
Al felt helpless in his brother’s ordeal, doing the best he could to hold back his hair and mop down his forehead and neck when needed.  
Winry felt like a failure. She had done everything she could to keep Ed safe and see his automail through the trials and travails of their adventures, and she couldn’t even make him comfortable in a white bed in the sleepy town of Risembool. So much for being a prodigy. 

A part of Winry had always wanted to keep the accident-prone Edward under her watchful eyes alone, but she knew it was out of pride rather than any valid reasoning. It was childish to think anyone could singlehandedly maintain so much control over another person, especially one who required special attention and had a knack for seeking out danger. She had racked her memory and every medical textbook in the house for some answer or clue to why he was reacting so badly to the food. Was it a fever? Ed was sweating like crazy, but he wasn’t hot to the touch. Some kind of allergy? Bad calibration? Was alchemy involved, for whatever stupid reason?  
In resignation, Winry sent for Pinako in hopes that maybe if she was missing something, her Grandmother would be able to fix it. 

 

“It’s a bad reaction to the anesthesia.” the Panthress of Risembool concluded simply. 

Ed’s eyebrows raised, Winry smacked herself in the forehead, and Al uttered a breathy “Oh.”

“Naturally, it will take a bit of time for you to recover, Ed, but I can make up some tea that will help speed the process along. I will need to pay a visit to the market to get the ingredients however, so it might take a bit of time, I’m afraid. Can I have a volunteer to come with me and help carry things?”  
The two potential candidates looked at each other- Al, with his unwavering expression, and Winry, with bags under her eyes and hair a tangled mess. Al jumped to the task before she could voice an opinion one way or the other. 

As the footsteps of their housemates receded down the hall and out the door, the girl let out a deep sigh and eased her head down onto Edward’s lap. Slumped on the stool next to the bed, she resembled a particularly exhausted slug.  
“Winry, this sucks.” he croaked as he absentmindedly twirled a lock of her ponytail around his fingers.  
“Your body rejected the anaesthesia, Ed.” She responded quietly.  
“I know, I heard her.” He countered. “But why? And how come you didn’t know about that? Didn’t you look in all those old books your parents had? Also, how come you didn’t use anaesthesia the first time? And why did you use it this time if it was going to-”  
“Ed.” She snapped, head lifting from the sheets. “Shut up... please.”  
He wanted to reply, but all he succeeded was a heavy exhale and a wounded expression.  
“Granny didn’t use anaesthesia when you were little because it was still so new and untested in a lot of scenarios, and for someone so young and in a such a fragile state it could have been bad. Really bad, Ed. We couldn’t risk that.”  
His frown loosened.  
She sighed and rolled onto her shoulder to look up at him.  
“As for why you had this kind of reaction… We don’t know, some people react differently than others. All the books we have in the house were published before my parents left for the war… they didn’t have much of anything on that subject. I should have figured it out though, I should have been able to help.”  
Winry avoided Edward’s eyes as he smoothed down her tangled hair and said nothing, deep in thought. 

It felt gentle, intimate, to have her there. Her eyes closed after a few minutes and her breathing slowed and evened out. He could feel her warm breath against his stomach and the snags in her hair as he combed his fingers through it. His mind was far away from the anaesthesia or the excessive vomiting or the dull ache in his stumps- he was too tired to care, she was warm and close. All that really mattered was that she was here. Ed wanted to hold her with two good hands and cradle her to his chest, let her know that she had done the best that she could and despite all his exhaustion and frustration, he was thankful for it. His heart thudded in his ears. Edward was a man of action, not words. Tethered to a bed with wires and lacking strength in his one good arm, the best he could do was awkwardly lean down and place a small kiss on her head… and then another. Her skin was soft and dappled by small beads of perspiration that lingered on his lips like salt. 

Winry’s eyes fluttered open and she gazed at him with an expression weathered by sleepless nights and worry. “How long did I nap for?” was the first thing she asked.  
“Just a few minutes, it’s alright.”  
“Did you just kiss me?” Was the second thing she asked.  
Ed’s brain stumbled through a coherent response.  
“I… no, uh. Maybe, but it was small, not really, when you think about it, so... Yeah, I guess so.” He concluded meekly.  
One eyebrow raised, but she gave no response other than to offer to get him more water. Ed decided to ignore the awkward little kiss and pretend that it had never happened.

The cup of water she brought him helped to wash away the rest of the acid taste lingering in his mouth and get his mind back in working order. Winry sat down on the bed, flush with his hip and eye-level. She studied his face as he drank like a predator waiting for a sign of weakness, the heat of her skin warming the blankets and pressing into his side. Ed felt uncomfortable under her close scrutiny, and as he placed the cup gingerly back on the bedstand, he made eye contact.  
“What?” He asked.  
“What, what?”  
“Why are you staring at me like that, Win. It’s weird.”  
Her gaze flickered over his lips, neck, chest bandaged and covered in wires.  
“Kiss me again.” She ordered.  
Ed’s heart kicked painfully behind his ribs.  
“Why? How?”  
“However you want to, Edward.” She replied evenly. She was tough to read- not hostile, but focused, fastidious. Was it some kind of test? Did she know about the dreams? Was she upset that he would have feelings for someone close enough to be his sister?  
_This is your chance,_ his heart said.  
_Careful,_ his head said.  
_Show her how you really feel,_ said years of loving, and months of pining for Winry Rockbell.

He pulled her into a gentle kiss with his hand supporting the back of her neck and his tiredness melted away in a rush of adrenalin that pulsed out to the edges of his fingertips and electrified his skin to her touch. He felt her heart racing against his chest and knew she had been just as nervous as he was, if not moreso. As she responded in kind, the kiss widened, deepened into a more carnal experience, tongues probing teeth and ragged breaths escaping at the fringes of their mouths. All of Edward’s pent up sexual tension coiled in his gut, and he fought to keep it down, but the way she was pressing into him and wrapping her hands in his hair was making a beast of him. He eased his hand down her back and tugged at the hem of her shirt. Winry sighed into his mouth, so he curled his fingers under the fabric and slipped his palm against her bare skin. She shivered at his touch and kissed him back with a fervor to match his own.  
_This isn’t a dream_ , the alchemist reminded himself as he stroked the muscles lining her spine.  
_This is real_ , he reminded himself as she moaned softly against his lips and tightened her grasp in his hair. Winry’s free hand roamed over his shoulder and ghosted over his ribs, settling on his hip to brace herself against the bed. She teased the nape of his neck and maneuvered him into a lip lock, he responded by sneaking his hands just below the waistline of her pants and pressing his fingers into the nerves behind her hip bones. She arched her back and gasped, then bit down hard on his lip. 

Ed’s whole body tensed, sending a bolt of pain through his shoulder port. The muscles tightened and locked, making him suddenly cry out and twist sharply, dislodging Winry’s hold on him. Her eyes were large with worry and her lips and cheeks were flushed.  
“What’s wrong, Ed?! Did I hurt you? Oh god I’m sorry I shouldn’t have bit you like that.”  
“No, not that” Edward managed through bared teeth. “Shoulder Cramping.”  
He reached up with a shaking hand to try to prod at the offending muscles, but Winry batted his hand away, and with a look of uncompromising determination, set away at kneading out the inflamed muscles near his shoulder port. It hurt like hell, and he begged her to stop, but her unrelenting fingers probed deep into his flesh and, little by little, worked away at the tension until it receded to a manageable level.

“Thanks,” Ed mumbled as she manipulated his rotator cuff in gentle circles to work out any remaining hitches. “I owe you one. Again.”  
“With as much as you owe me, you’re gonna have to build me a house someday.”  
He didn’t know how to respond other than to stare at her dumbly. She simply smiled back.

“It sounds like Granny and Al are back. I better go help them with that tea, hm? As soon as you’re eating again, we can get you some temporary prosthetics.” Winry grabbed his hand, squeezed it gently, and turned to walk out. She had a spring in her step that concealed any sign of sleep deprivation from before.  
Ed was alone once more, flushed and wanting. Despite the cramping in his shoulder, need still twisted in his gut like a wild thing clawing at his skin to escape. She was teasing him, and he knew it, but rationally, he knew it would be better to resume once he had recovered more of his energy and had enough limbs to actually… his heart fluttered. Would it come to that? The tension in his gut seemed to think so, and the way she had been writhing against him didn’t suggest otherwise. 

Maybe building a house for Winry wouldn’t be so bad.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Buckle your seat belts, folks. The EdWin train is a-chugging.


	7. Reconstruction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Question of the hour: why is Winry acting so strangely?
> 
> A short chapter to talk about feelings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is filler. Angsty, angst-filled filler.

The tea was strong and bitter, but much to Ed’s surprise, it proved effective in pushing out any traces of nausea that lurked around his guts. Very effective. After a day of bananas and oatmeal, his appetite returned with a vengeance.

_Classic_ , thought Winry. _The next challenge is keeping his stomach from exploding._

Pinako laughed at her granddaughter’s obvious disapproval, and to dispel the tension, decided to regale her trio of teenagers with stories about her son’s experience growing up.  
“When Yuriy was sixteen,” she began, “he cooked up and ate an entire chicken I had been brining for a neighbor’s birthday celebration. When I caught him, he offered me a drumstick as a peace offering. I still had to take disciplinary measures though.”

“What did you do?” breathed Alphonse.

“I had him cook up a whole new chicken because that was the best damn drumstick I’d ever had.”

Winry guffawed, Al giggled, and Ed smiled.

“Was Dad a good cook?” Winry asked timidly.

Pinako tapped her finger against her cheek in thought. “When he didn’t have his nose in a book, your father was always making up new recipes, or playing with bits of machinery to augment his cooking utensils. Yuriy was too smart for his own good. Always had a healthy sense of adventure, whether it was in the kitchen or on the battlefield.”  
She paused and faced the Elrics.  
“You’re a lot like him, Ed.”

He paused mid-chew and swallowed a piece of bread awkwardly. 

Noting the late afternoon sunlight playing on the floor, Pinako yawned and patted Ed on the knee before dismissing herself to go to bed, leaving the trio to their own devices.

“Winry, I didn’t know your dad liked to cook.” Alphonse turned to look at her as she studied the floor.  
“I didn’t either.” She replied. “He must have stopped after becoming a doctor. Maybe he didn’t have time.” 

The pregnant pause gave them a moment of contemplation. Alphonse thought about food, Winry thought about her father, and Ed thought about how time was an increasingly precious commodity. 

…..

The drawings for Ed’s automail were already underway. He suspected as much because of Winry’s prolonged absences from his presence and the fog of focus that clouded all of her interactions. He could read it on her face when she came to check up on him. He knew the signs- when she was working on any new project she would chew her lip and and gaze at a random object in the vicinity with an unfocused set to her eyes, fingers twitching and tweaking imaginary bolts. She didn’t sleep when she was engaged thoroughly in her work.  
“Hey, gearhead.” He said on one such occasion. It was bad enough having no one to talk to when he was alone, worse when there was no one to talk to even when she was in the room.

“Hm?” she responded, the circuitry in her mind’s eye dissipating to take him in. 

“How are the plans coming”

“What plans, Ed?”

He made a grand exaggeration of rolling his eyes.

“Don’t play dumb Winry, I know when you’re working on something. When do I get my automail back?” 

She scowled.  
“Do you think this is something we can just ‘poof’ out of thin air?” She clapped her hands in an equally grand exaggeration of his own brand of alchemy, he reddened.  
“Do you know how hard we’re working to make this as good as we can make it? Do you realize how much stress you put m-our automail through?” She exhaled, and added as an afterthought, “Do you know how much your body has changed? We’re building this from scratch, and all you can ask is when it will be done? Why, Ed? Do you have anywhere to go?”  
_Yes_ , he thought. _I have to get back to central. I have a promise to my brother to fulfill. I have homunculi to kill._

“I…” he started. 

She looked pained. “Why can’t you just… I don’t get you Ed, I thought you had changed somehow.” 

Winry stood and exited the white room as she spoke, not giving him a chance to explain. Her back was to him, but he heard her voice shake as she slipped further away from him, just as she had so many times in the last couple of days. It seemed like they couldn’t talk about anything lately without her getting mad or him saying something stupid. “I thought you had changed…” was she talking about the kiss? As far as he knew, he was still the same person. What did she want from him? He didn’t get her either.  
_She doesn’t understand_ , he reasoned. 

Edward had been cooped up in the white room for three days, and confined to a wheelchair for three more- granted, he had been mostly unconscious for the first two, but he was crawling the walls for something to do other than eat and sit and read.  
Al was the vast majority of his company- he brought him books, talked to him about whatever was on his mind, and listened to his profuse complaining without judgement (as far as he knew. There was no way to read Al’s facial expressions). Whenever Al went on walks or played with Din outside, he always brought back a feather or an interesting rock, as if small relics of the outside world would make it more accessible to his brother during his recovery. Ed didn’t share his younger brother’s naive wonder at natural phenomena beyond their chemical composition, but he appreciated the gesture all the same. 

The one thing he couldn’t talk to his sibling about was Winry.

Al wouldn’t understand. He hadn’t been through puberty, and as much as he talked about wanting to fall in love, he didn’t have the first thing about this kind of love: how it entailed suffering through sleepless nights, the endless confusion, and the constant tugging at the back of his mind as to what she was doing at any given moment, if she still felt how she had when she kissed him, despite their strange and inexplicable falling out.  
He had free reign of the house from his wheelchair (except for the upper level), but the door to Winry’s workshop was always closed- to specifically keep him out, he suspected. Automail was a realm he was not permitted to share with her, despite it being a major connection between them. He knew how to use it, but he didn’t know the first thing about constructing it. Winry was careful to keep Edward and his automail in neatly separated corners of her life -- maybe she didn’t know how much it frustrated him, feeling like he was torn in different directions in her world as well. 

Ed occasionally harbored dark thoughts on the subject -- he couldn’t help feeling like she wouldn’t care about him except for his dependance on her skill as a mechanic... as if validating her was the only thing she valued about their relationship.  
He didn’t want to argue, he wanted to kiss her again. Why did she have to be so distant? He knew automail was her passion, but as much as his logical brain told him she was hardwired to be so singularly focused, his emotions demanded to know why she didn’t want to spend so much time focused on him instead.  
The irony was not lost on Ed that she was, in a way, focused intensely on what would become one piece of his body. He just wished that it were a real flesh-and-blood part of him.

 

...

 

On the sixth day of recovery, Pinako finally, blessedly deemed Edward strong enough to be outfitted with temporary prosthetics. She and Winry needed to take stock their patient’s condition before attempting to fabricate his new automail designs. 

The announcement washed like a thunderous applause over Ed. He knew it would only be a matter of time, but he still felt like exploding with joy at the thought of walking again, being able to go where he wanted, when he wanted, upstairs or outside, somewhere where he could spar with Al and maybe feel himself again; even reattachment wouldn’t dampen his giddiness. 

“Hold still, Ed” Winry reminded him for the third time in the span of five minutes while she and Pinako lined up the prosthetics. Edward whipped around in his chair, deaf to her instructions and continued to chatter with Al about what they would do in town that afternoon, despite Pinako’s warnings about putting too much strain on the newly reconstructed ports. Winry glanced at her grandmother, and seeing the answering grin, rolled her eyes.  
“Alright, Edward Elric,” Pinako butted in. “We’re attaching this automail whether you’re ready or not.”  
At that warning the boy abruptly stopped talking and returned to a neutral position. After a pause he grinned, braced a hand on Al’s shoulder, and nodded.  
“Relax a bit.” said Winry.  
Ed closed his eyes and slowed his breathing.

The _click_ triggered the familiar spine-singing rush of neuron communication up and down his backbone. A lightning flash behind his eyes echoed the fiery sensation snapping in his stumps, a million needles stabbing simultaneously into the muscle and bone tissue. His back arched, he let out a strangled cry-  
and then the worst was done.  
The violent reattachment of his nerves faded into a dull ache in his ports and a buzzing in his brain, and as he opened his eyes, the room spun wildly overhead. Someone was speaking to him but the words wouldn’t filter through the static roaring in his ears. “Hold on…” he tried to speak, but it probably didn’t come out as clearly as he wanted. He was being lifted… then settled back down… and the slowly room came back to order.

Ed blinked a few times as his eyes refocused on Winry’s face hovering above him. She was tucking sheets gently around his good shoulder as Pinako inspected his right shoulder port, prodding and occasionally muttering to herself.  
“It all checks out so far. Now let me get a look at the leg.”  
The boy’s eyes remained steadfastly on Winry, her wide blue gaze hesitating over him as his leg was manipulated and inspected by the elderly mechanic. 

Voices in the background mentioned something about lunch, possibly tea, were they having stew tonight? Or potatoes and sausage?

He opened his mouth as Winry began to leave.  
_Again, please don’t leave again._  
He had his freedom back now, he could actually spend time with her. She didn’t have to leave him all the time.  
“Stay…” Ed reached for her arm with the primitive automail affixed to his shoulder and only managed to brush her hand as she turned away from him to fade into yet another lapse, a desert devoid of the human contact he so dearly craved.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tune in next chapter for sexy fun! You won't regret it!


	8. Revelry/Reverie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winry can't sleep. Something bothers her about the way that as much as she tries to distance herself from her alchemist, it simply isn't going to happen, is it?
> 
> Dreams and Bacchanalian festivities, all wrapped up in one little chapter.

Winry Rockbell fiddled with a deconstructed gear hinge at her worktable. The detailed mechanisms splayed out before her had begun to swim under the yellow light of her work lamp a while ago… it was probably time to get some sleep, but she knew her mind would continue to race whether she were here or laying in her bed under the covers of darkness. 

She felt… guilty wasn’t the word, but she knew she was just making up reasons to justify her reluctance to spend any time close to Ed.  
 _I’m not sleeping. My emotions are all out of whack._

She knew what it was, even if she didn’t want to look it in the face. After the last kiss she had all the answers she had wanted about Ed and where they might dare to go together. It was dangerous. He had grabbed at her like a desperate thing, a boy starved of intimate contact and yearning for the touch of a woman’s body.   
Winry was torn by the magnetic pull of her soul to his as well as the knowledge that the timing couldn’t have been worse. Until he and Al returned to Risembool, whole again, she dare not distract him. With Homunculi and the promise of philosopher’s stones stalking the hunting grounds, the brothers were dead-set on restoring their bodies -- after all, wasn’t it fairer to make love to a whole Edward rather than a broken one? For his sake? It would be cruel to make him focus on anything other than their ambitions.

Winry peered through a disembodied nut at the opposite wall.

She wanted to think for a long time that he felt the same way about her, but didn’t dare hope to act on it until she had proof. And how hard would that have been? With Edward gone all the time and her immersed in her studies, how could they have ever known? It all made sense when she thought about it now, but then, it had seemed an impossible task. It made the most sense to simply wait until they would return for good.  
But her hormones and selfish desires had hijacked all of the careful patience she had built. She tapped a bolt against the table to dislodge a bit of dirt.

The problem now was that the kiss had opened up a whole new mess of questions. Was he angry with her for being so aggressive with him while he was trying to get back on track? Did he ever think of her like that when they were apart? Or was he just blindly groping for any girl to respond to him? _Had_ there ever been another girl? Edward made a cutting figure, all golden-blonde and with a constant, light flush about the cheeks lately, she had noticed. His kisses had been sloppy, but it was very possible that he had kissed someone else and just never had good instruction… it wasn’t like she had stayed entirely chaste during her time in Rush Valley. Occasional dates with young men passing through the area and needing maintenance were not foreign to her, so it wouldn’t be unreasonable if he had done the same. 

Maybe she could ask Al.

Winry smacked herself in the forehead with one gloved hand for not thinking of that before. The question of other girls in Ed’s life had plagued her more than she had liked, but she would sleep better knowing the answer rather than not. 

…

Al usually shared a room with Ed, preferring to read or gaze out at the moon while his brother slept. In Risembool, it was a comfort. In Central, it was a security measure. 

With this in mind, Winry quietly knocked on the door to the Elric brothers’ room. “Al?” she whispered, hearing no reply.   
She poked her head inside the door frame and glanced about the room. “Alphonse?” 

The room was silent, save for the sound of light snoring coming from the bed.

Winry crept inside and tip-toed over to the window to see if he had decided to spend the night outside. Surely enough, a large suit of armor sat in the grass next to the distant road, gazing at the stars, unmoving, as the grass bowed gently around him to the night breeze. She would have been worried if she didn’t know Al frequently liked to stargaze. In Central, the city lights blocked out much of the night sky, but in sleepy Risembool, the whole Milky Way spread out before him like a blanket of starlight. “It reminds me of feeling wind and all the night-time smells,” he had once told her. Al always tended to appreciate small details that went unnoticed by most people.

Winry had hoped to talk to him now, while they were both awake and Ed lay dead to the world. After attaching the temporary limbs, Ed had had a brief nap on the couch, then boys had snuck out of the house without saying a word. Ed was hell-bent on savoring some of his newly regained freedom at once, and acted immediately upon it… only to be carried back by Alphonse two hours later.   
“He was fine at first, but then he began to limp, and I told him we should rest, but brother is too stubborn so I had to pick him up and carry him back when he tripped over a branch in the road.” Al had recounted after he brought his brother back that afternoon. Ed was fuming, upset that they hadn’t made it all the way to Risembool proper before having been handled like a sack of potatoes and dragged back to the Rockbell residence against his will. Pinako was visibly displeased, _tsking_ as she inspected the inflamed flesh around his ports.  
“Alphonse, if you ever let this boy go running off again, I will have both of you spanked so badly you won’t be able to walk out that door.”  
Al flinched at her tone and sprung to an immediate “Yes ma’am!”  
Ed grew flushed as a tomato and opened his mouth to retort, but good judgement got the better of him.

She smiled at the memory.

Winry made to exit the room, but as she turned to glance at the comatose Elric, something gave her pause. Edward slept like a rock, the evidence of the day’s adventures written all over his resting form. She noted the angry red of the inflammation around his leg port and the soft pink on his slightly-parted lips, the warm tan of his nose and forearms. Flecks of mica from the dust of the road caught the moonlight, shimmering in his unbraided hair and over the soft skin of his stomach like so many stars, the rays of faint silver light colliding with the hot gold of his skin. He had kicked the sheets off in his sleep so that they were piled around his shins. The scene was alluring; he looked so audaciously peaceful when he slept, like he could simply roll troubles off of him like water off a duck’s back while unconscious. She had never possessed any such abilities in sleep.

Winry stayed, wavering on the brink of reality and desire. She turned towards the door. Her feet carried her towards the exit, but rather than quietly slipping out and walking down the hall, she closed it.

_What am I doing?_

He wore a white cotton sleep shirt, slightly rumpled at the hem where his hand tangled in the fabric, exposing a patch of skin from his rib cage to the hem of his boxer shorts. How badly she wanted to touch him there.   
She felt as if the figure before her were carved from stone, so picturesque and beautifully framed in the light of a full moon. He seemed unreal. Winry’s hand was drawn towards his body, and it hovered there, just close enough to his skin to feel the heat of his belly. The life-fire coursing just underneath the surface was all the proof she needed to be assured of his presence.

_I’m not in a dream_

She kneeled next to the bed, eye-level with the sleeping boy, her hand moments away from settling on his stomach.

_This is weird, I ought to leave_

She closed her eyes and pulled her hand away from the magnetism of his body, but she couldn’t bring herself to stand up and walk out, so she sat. Winry gazed on sadly while he slept.

…

For once, no dreams disturbed Edward’s sleep, but during the night, something that felt like a promise drew him back into consciousness, and there he found her. Through half-lidded eyes he saw that she was slumped next to the bed, staring at her hands and motionless. He laid there for a while, but sleep would not return to him while she was so close in his presence, electrifying the very air he breathed.   
“Where’s Al?” he croaked.  
Winry’s head snapped up to look at him. “Star-gazing.” She replied.  
A hundred impulses fought for dominance inside her.

“What are you doing here, Win?” Ed propped himself up on one elbow and cleared the grit from his eyes to better look at her.

“Sorry,” she managed weakly

“What?” 

“I’ve been acting so weird, it’s not your fault, I just didn’t want to distract you and…” she hurriedly wiped her eyes, “I’m in your room, it’s weird. I should go,”   
She stumbled to stand but she felt a hand grip her wrist.

“You don’t have to, please…” he started. 

Winry stopped. She took a step back and lowered herself to sit onto the bed.   
Ed let go of her wrist and, suddenly remembering his modesty, reclaimed one of the crumpled sheets by his feet. She stared at the door and sniffled quietly. Sensing the tension in her body, Ed tentatively reached out to rub her back. It was the most contact they had shared since the last kiss, suspended somewhere in the limbo between intimacy and friendship.  
“Sorry,” she said again, softer.  
“Winry…”   
She turned to look at him directly, her eyes slightly red and puffy.  
“Do you care about me?”  
Ed was taken aback.  
“Of course I care about you, Winry. You’re… you’re my best friend, I think you’re amazing.”  
She shook her head. “No Ed, I mean… do you want me? To do things with me?”  
The gears in his brain frantically whirred, kicked into action out of sleep. He was pretty sure he caught her meaning, but the last thing he wanted was to misstep around her feelings.  
“Yeah, I… I thought you knew that. We kissed, didn’t we?”  
A blush lighted in both of their cheeks at the memory of their previous encounter. 

_Why am I being so shy now?_

She knew the answer, that deep down, she was scared. She was worried that her forwardness would drive him away, or worse yet, her relative inexperience, if he had been with other girls and knew what everything was supposed to feel like anyhow.

“We did.” 

She stayed still, waiting on him to make the first move. 

“I’d like it if we did again.”

Ed reached up towards her face, and she leaned into his touch, her nose brushing the conjunction of his wrist and palm. She sniffled again and wiped her nose on the back of one hand.

“I would too,” she laughed softly.

“Then it’s settled,” Ed said, grinning, as he drew her towards him. They crashed into each other like a wave breaking on the shore in slow motion, her hands cascading over his shoulders as the sea foam on the earth, and his embrace absorbing her as water into sand. She knocked against his mouth with a lustful force that gave him goosebumps, she worked at him while he clung to her like the wreckage of a storm. They resumed the last kiss exactly where they had left up, turning right to the page, mouths and bodies knowing the proper course of action by instinct alone.   
Winry broke the kiss and teased at his mouth, pecking his bottom lip, his nose, the corner of his jaw, and his smile infected her own tear-streaked face.   
“You cry too much” he muttered between breaths  
“You don’t cry enough” she responded in kind.  
As a side-thought, Winry kicked down the sheet he had just pulled up in order to savor contact with all of him. 

The girl riddled Ed with kisses, across his face, down his neck, and, after pulling off the troublesome white sleep shirt, onto his shoulders as her hands combed through his hair. He brushed his fingers over her upper arms and the silk of her night-gown as she tantalized him and tested his patience. He smelled like sleep and a hot sun-baked dirt road.

“Win,” 

She ran her tongue along his neck as he let his hands wander over her back, exploring the divots where her muscles contracted and the gentle slopes of her shoulder blades under her gown.

“Ed,” She breathed as he cupped her cheeks and nibbled on her jaw.  
He hummed against her skin in response   
“Have you ever… ah!” She broke off as she felt one hand drift towards her bottom and press lightly.

“Have I ever…?” he paused in his ministrations to gaze at her.

“There are lots of girls in central, I mean, did you ever… do anything? With them?”

The light blush in his cheeks became a deeper shade of rouge.  
“Do you really gotta to ask that now?”

Her own blush lighted down her neck and across her chest.  
“I just, it’s for… I don’t know Ed, I guess I just want to know if you know how to do this.”

His eyes narrowed like a cat’s.  
“What exactly do you mean by ‘this?”

She opened her mouth to reply, closed it, and ran one hand through his hair to place it on his chest. 

“It’s not too soon, is it? We’ve always been mature for our age.” 

“Oh… y-yeah, uh-”

Ed sucked in a breath as she settled herself on his body, her hips placed squarely over his own. She caught him unawares, drawing his bottom lip up into a lip lock.

During his time in the military, Ed had been kissed a grand total of once. It had mostly been a mistake, a misunderstanding between him and a nice girl who hung around the library frequently. He thought she was cute, with mousy-brown hair and a pension for book learning, but the miscommunication ended up with a sloppy kiss in a back alley that had left them both with an awkward memory they would have both preferred to forget. He didn’t see her around much after that. 

“There was this one time that… nevermind, it’s not important.” He said around her mouth, not wanting to taint the current experience.

For a moment Winry stopped moving, and he was scared she would pry further into the anecdote, but her gaze softened and she simply replied, “Okay.”  
He exhaled with relief.

Winry shifted slightly on his lap, wrapping her knees on either side of his hips and stretching her arms up under his shoulders, reforming the lip lock.  
“Let’s try this again.” Ed heard her murmur, and she bit gently down; Winry was pleased to feel him moan and arch his back suddenly. 

He opened up his mouth to her again and again, but this time she was alight with animation, her body writhing and shifting over his to evoke what reactions she could- a gasp here, a twitch there, and most deliciously of all- feeling his hips press involuntarily up into her own when she ground down on him. Ed froze as he realized what he had been doing, but she held steadfastly onto his lip with her teeth and repeated the action, rocking her hips back and forth over the rapidly growing hardness beneath her.   
Noticing that Ed had stopped moving, Winry sat upright and smiled at him. She felt all the sly vixen as she gave one or two more experimental shifts over his torso, and he stared up at her, dumbfounded, his cheeks flushed a full red and his hair billowing out around him.   
Winry grabbed his hands and playfully placed them on her hips as she slowly rolled back and forth on his barely-concealed length. The boy squeezed his eyes shut and sucked in a breath as his blush spread across his bare chest.

“Damn, you’re good at this,” he uttered under his breath.

She smiled and guided one of his hands up her ribcage and to her breasts.   
Ed’s eyes popped open and he gaped at her as she held him there, one hand on her chest and the other at her hip.

She paused, frowned.  
“You’ve never done this before.” 

“N-no. Have you?” 

She stared at him for a moment, then replaced his hand at her hip, brushing loose hair behind her shoulder

“Here,” she said, resting her own hand on her breasts, “let me show you.” 

Winry brushed her finger tips in light circles around the curve of her boobs, then gently massaged around the sides, drawing her thumbs up towards the now pointed nipples poking through her nightgown. Peering down at Ed’s face, she noted with satisfaction that he was watching her closely, rapt with fascination. She rocked over his hips again as she rolled her nipples between her thumbs and index fingers, allowing a lewd sigh to escape her lips. 

“Oh, god…”

Ed’s flesh hand traced up her side, and propping himself up on his automail elbow, followed her hand to mimic her own administrations.   
“You learn fast” she breathed as she ground against his erection, letting him take over.  
“Always have.” He growled as he instead gripped her ribs and pulled her down into another kiss.

Edward was painfully aware of Winry’s cunt, pressed closely against his own manhood. Though clothed, he could feel the soft folds of her labia parted around his shaft, rocking maddeningly slowly back and forth, back and forth, the pressure and heat of her slit against his pubic bone enough to drive him insane-- he whined and pressed himself up against her, but he still craved more.   
Winry giggled as Edward flipped them over and took charge. His breath was hot against her neck as he bore down into her, seeking as much sensation from her clothed sex as he could.   
She sighed and wrapped her legs up and around him, hands tangling in his hair.   
“S-sorry,” he managed as he fought for purchase against the heat between her legs. “Did you want this?”   
She rocked with his erratic thrusts, trying to establish a rhythm.   
“Yeah.”   
Winry wondered at the erotic scene that lay before her, his body rolling and contracting over her own, her Edward, growing bolder and healing at her hands, coming of age against her body. Their breathing grew heavier with each push, Edward straining to carve out the sensation he had been seeking for months, and Winry clinging to him in kind. The bed softly creaked. She shifted under his onslaught, trying to find a sweet spot where his cock pressed against her clitoris, and finding it, arched into him and pressed her lips against his ear.   
“Oh god, there.”   
“Here?”   
He gave one long, steady push and inched himself just slightly over her, and even through their underwear, the pressure sent sparks up her spine. A hungry sweetness bloomed in the pit of her womb as Winry ground up into him, edging against the tip of his cock to draw out as much sensation as she could manage. The sweat between them made their flesh slip over one another as they rutted against each other like animals, years of sexual tension bubbling to the surface and setting their skin on fire.   
She couldn’t grip enough of him. “Edward,” she whined, and he grazed his teeth over her neck, predatory.  
“I want…”   
He breathed against her collarbone, fighting to find the right words.  
“I’ve been wanting this for a long time”   
His left hand crept up to one breast, repeating the the movements she had shown him and focusing attention on the areola and hardened nipple. 

When Winry opened her eyes again, she saw Edward propped up over her, one hand playfully tugging at the hem of her nightgown.

 

“Can I…?” he intoned, tickling the skin where the edge of her gown hit her thigh.

“I’m not wearing a bra,” she wondered dumbly out loud.

Ed chuckled. “I know.” 

She nodded, flustered, and sat up to give him easier access. Edward steeled his nerves and slowly lifted Winry’s silk nightgown over her head, and seeing her, bare before him save a pair of blue underpants, made his heart pound maddeningly in his chest.   
She almost made to cover herself from his wolfish gaze, but Winry stopped herself in time. Her hair fell in soft waves over her shoulders, and the silhouette of the windowpane cast a dark cross over the bed where the moonlight framed her body. 

“I think we should take our underwear off too.” Winry said.

Edward’s stomach flipped, but he gave his assent and hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his boxers as she did the same. 

Ever so slowly did he slide his boxer shorts off of his hips with the timidness of a child wading into cold water. She had seen his penis before, he knew, but never in the context of intimacy. They sat exposed mirror images, drinking each others’ bodies in with wide eyes and hearts pounding. Winry was… fuller than Ed had expected, the curves of her breasts and hips forming into an exquisitely womanly shape that his brain struggled to associate with his childhood friend. Her blue eyes, her strong mechanic’s arms, the pouch of her gently sloping stomach, a soft garden of straw-blonde curls nestled between her legs. He felt like his whole face was fit to spontaneously combust.   
Winry had seen Edward naked before, but he appeared now before her as a man, still growing, but rapidly coming into his own body. His limbs were becoming longer, and the physique of his shoulders and abdomen more defined than she had remembered. Sprouting between his muscled thighs was a proudly erect penis that drew her eyes like a moth to a flame. 

“Wow,” Winry spoke after a moment, remembering how to breathe.

“You don’t think Al will walk in on us, do you?” Ed wondered aloud.

“I don’t think so. He spends a long time out there when he wants to stargaze.” 

She crept closer to him, suddenly shy again at touching the angelic golden figure before her. Ed placed a trembling hand on her waist and ran his automail fingers through her hair, careful not to catch any of the wheat-blonde strands in the joints. “I love you,” he blurted, and the words hung between them like a balloon suspended in the air. 

“You-”

“I mean, I always have! You’re Winry. I really like… this, what we’re doing now, but I’ve always-”

She silenced him with a soft kiss.

“Ed, you don’t have to explain everything with words.”

Winry guided him back to her, and they brushed their lips over each other, letting the soft skin of their mouths take in the sensory input of each other’s flesh. Winry’s hand fumbled for his knee, then trailed up his thigh to trace the curve of where his quadriceps met his hip. Ed pulled her into his lap as a response, then ducked his head beneath her jaw to nibble at her neck. Old drawings in anatomy textbooks became alive before Winry’s mind’s eye as he kissed his way down her body.  
“Suprahyoid muscle group, mmmmm…. and that’s a sternocleidomastoid-”

Edward flipped them, pinning her to the bed once again.

“Right clavicle” she giggled when he drew his tongue across her collarbone.

“Pectoralis major- ah!”

She broke off as Ed took one nipple into his mouth and gently sucked, bringing blood flow to the areola and making Winry sensitive to his touches. The brief anatomy lesson ceased promptly when he teased the other breast with his left hand, drawing forth gasps and keens instead.   
They kept on like this, petting and flipping, alternating between gentle pecks and full on making out, but after a while, Winry realized Ed was hesitant to take it to the next step- most likely shyness, worrying about hurting her. She broke a deep kiss to gaze at him, flushed and breathless. “Lie down.” she instructed.  
He did so.   
Winry tucked herself into his side, curling up like a contented cat in the divot of his waist, and snuck a hand to his chest to feel the madly racing heart contained there.   
“Are you scared?” She asked.

“Nervous.” he admitted, and swallowed. She could see beads of sweat on his forehead and the shaking of his hand when he moved to place it over hers.

“We can stop, if you want.”

“No, no I’m fine, I want to. I’m just… it’s the first time I’ve ever… ya know?”

“Just relax,” Winry said as she dislodged his hand and brought her own to rest on his pubic bone. Ed sputtered and blinked.

“The last time you said that to me-” the thought was interrupted as she snaked her hand around his cock and slid it up the length.   
“You, ah… reattachment, god, that hurt… not this though, ohh, fuck.”   
Edward squeezed his eyes shut and arched his chest off of the bed. Noting the dryness of his skin, Winry broke contact to wet her palm against her own arousal, then returned her attention to his shaft. She nestled in close to her midnight lover as she explored his cock, pressing lightly on the muscle lining the underside of the member and running her fingers playfully around the glans and frenulum. The veins presented a roadmap to her, each route offering a different reaction from Edward; upon vigorously rubbing the head of his cock, Winry found that Ed would elicit a high pitched gasping sound that would have wakened the whole house had she not clamped a hand over his mouth.   
“You’re noisy,” she purred as she saddled up to his neck and latched onto his skin with her lips and teeth. 

“You’re damn good at this,” he complained in return. 

Winry teased the boy over the edge and back again, fondling his balls and tickling the golden pubic hair around the base. Ed writhed under her like a puppet on a string, moaning and and leaking precum profusely onto her hand. Satisfied with the dark purple ring she had left on his neck, she broke her tantalizing to kiss him again, tasting the desire laced in his lips and the salt on his golden skin. “Please,” she thought she heard him whisper, and then louder, “Please, Win.”

She kissed him deeply once more, and then shimmied down his body to face his lower torso. 

“Because you asked so nicely,” she started, then pressed her lips to the tip of his erection. 

Edward forgot how to breathe as Winry slid her tongue down the side of his cock. Her hand had felt wonderful, but her mouth felt like divinity, wet and hot and full to bursting with the willingness to please him. She breathed in the musty scent of Ed’s arousal and kissed about the base, then took only the glans into her mouth, and, being careful not to let her teeth graze the skin, sucked on the tip of his prick. 

“Holy shit, Winry,” he gasped as she took more of him into her mouth and suckled, electrifying all of the nerve endings in his cock. The sweet pressure building in his groin and the pit of his stomach was making his mind hazy and his senses blurred. All sensation was concentrated on the hot vacuum of her mouth, making him painfully hard and dizzy with need.

Sensing the tension building in his body, Winry released his member from her mouth and began to rub him vigorously, surrounding as much of his cock with her hand as possible. Ed’s curses devolved into unintelligible whines and moans, ungodly lustful noises that made her blush harder than she had been already -- each breath was labored, heavy, and his hips bucked uncontrollably into her hand, his body desperately trying to find the release he craved. Winry latched again onto his collarbone, savoring the sweat on his skin and the symphony of desire in her ears. 

Their rapid pace was interrupted by one hard thrust, and then another, and another, as Ed’s breath hitched in his throat… then choked out, ragged at the edges, on each press up against her hand. Winry felt a hot wetness as she gripped his member, helping him ride out his climax by applying pressure where he needed it, the thrusts growing gradually weaker, then fading into stillness.

After a heavy moment of silence, she heard him violently exhale all at once, and resume breathing normally at last. 

“Wow,” he voiced after a few minutes.

“Wow,” she agreed, and laid her head against his chest, marvelling at his muscled stomach rising and falling, his now soft penis resting on the golden bed of curls at the base of his torso. She absentmindedly traced the lines of his abdomen with a finger, around the boxy muscles of his stomach, around the deep V lining his lower abdomen, and up to the puckered scars branching across his chest. Up close, it looked as if some great metal beast was consuming his body, its teeth sunk deep into his flesh.  
“You’re so beautiful.” she said, placing her head on the pillow next to his. “Like a lion.” She added as he turned to face her, noting the deep amber in his his eyes, now glossed over with post-orgasm bliss. 

“A lion?” He asked sleepily.

“Yeah. Big and golden and warm.”   
He smiled at her choice of adjectives and chuckled lightly, then abruptly frowned. “I need to please you, don’t I? That’s fair.”

“No.” She responded, nuzzling his earlobe. “I would love that, but I also really like this.”   
Winry threw one arm across his shoulders to hug him close, her breasts pressing into the side of his ribs. He felt like an animal that had been laying in the sun. While she was still aroused, she was very aware of the fact that Ed would be little good to her in this state. He had proven his inexperience in the realm of lovemaking and was already exhausted from the night’s revelries.

Edward didn’t argue. He held Winry against his chest in a contented fog as waves of endorphins washed over him. He wished she would stay there all night, in his arms, warm and soft against his skin. Drifting off to sleep briefly, he didn’t notice her absence until she had already dressed herself and washed her hands.   
“You ought to clean yourself up a bit.” She said softly as she reentered the room. “Don’t want to get anything on the sheets.”

He groaned and put in the effort to sit up, his hair draping over his lap like a gold curtain. It was sound advice, but focusing on staying awake was proving more difficult than anticipated. He managed to stumble to the bathroom and replace his discarded boxer shorts, but didn’t bother with the missing shirt. Ed flopped back onto the bed with a grunt. “Better now?”

“Much.” Winry said as she approached him again. 

He sighed as she gave him one last kiss. The sad sweetness of the end settled over them like a blanket. “Let’s do this again,” Ed murmured through the sleepy haze, and Winry grinned in agreement. 

“I love you too. Always have” she said as a final thought, wished him goodnight, and backed out of the room. Ed watched her go through half-lidded eyes as the door to the hallway closed, leaving him in cool, cricket call-filled darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was initially grouped in with chapter 8 to create one big, long mega-chapter, but I thought I would space them out for attention's sake. I literally spent 3 days writing just this one segment at the end so... I'm glad I finally just posted the damn thing.  
> Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there~ welcome to my first fanfic ever posted here. Enjoy, you saucy gearheads.


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